Westmark Trilogy

by Lloyd Alexander.

> Paraphrasing Wikipedia:

> Showing influences of the French existentialist writers whose works Alexander translated early in his career, the series is far darker and more adult than his previous books for children including the famous The Chronicles of Prydain, aka Black Couldren Series. Although classified as fantasy, there is no magic, nor any sign of religious belief, in Westmark or the succeeding volumes. > > The novel tells a story of political upheaval and revolution strikingly similar to the history of the French Revolution, as seen through the eyes of a young printer's apprentice who goes on the run after his master is murdered.

<em>Westmark</em>, The Kestrel, and The Beggar Queen, are each short novella length. WordCount.net estimates 2 1/2 hours of reading time per book, which is why I suggest the trio as a unit.

In my opinion these books are some of the best teen lit ever written.

They are dark AF. They have no magic and cover topics of revolution, murder, and ethics -- but get appropriately classified as Fantasy because Westmark (both the book and country) is fundamentally a fantasy genre trope creation. Alexander uses an economy of words to create utterly believable characters in a familiar High Fantasy world.

• You can read all three books on practically any web enabled device with this link.
• You can pick up a used copy of each book for 1¢ + shipping on Amazon and lots of other places.
  

Lloyd Alexander's Westmark trilogy: http://www.amazon.com/Westmark-The-Trilogy-Lloyd-Alexander/dp/0141310685.

Each of these is under 200, and the story picks up the pace right from the outset.