The Hero and the Crown (Damar #1)

The Hero and the Crown is a fantasy novel written by Robin McKinley and published by Greenwillow Books in 1984. It is the winner of the 1985 Newbery Medal award. The book is the prequel to The Blue Sword, written in 1982. This story focuses on "Aerin Dragon-Killer," also known as "Aerin Firehair," the heroine who is introduced as a legendary character in The Blue Sword. The book narrates Aerin's evolution from the shy, retiring daughter of the King of Damar to the heroic queen who protects her people from the demonic Northerners.

The story is set in the Smokehill National Park, a wildlife preserve for the preservation and study of dragons. The dragons are elusive; evidence of their existence can be found everywhere, but the dragons themselves remain hidden. Young Jake Mendoza, who lives with his father, the owner and director of the park, goes out hiking one day and comes across a dying dragon. The dragon has been fatally injured by a poacher who has breached the security of the wildlife preserve.

Chalice was published in 2008. It was written by fantasy author Robin McKinley, who lives in England. McKinley has won several awards for her writing, some of which has been popular with young readers, and some with mature ones. Her work has been published for thirty years. She has re-told old fairy tales, and the story of Robin Hood, sub-created a country, Damar, in a world like some of the desert or near-desert parts of ours, except that there are dragons. In Chalice, she has written a book which takes place in a country that seems entirely of McKinley's creation, except that the culture approximates that of the Middle Ages. There are horses and carriages, but no steam engines, swords but no gunpowder.

The Blue Sword (Damar #2)

The Blue Sword is a fantasy novel written by Robin McKinley and published by the Berkley Publishing Group in 1982. The novel The Hero and the Crown serves as a prequel. The Blue Sword has received numerous awards, including: Newbery Honor Award, ALA Best Book for Young Adults and the ALA Notable Children's Book. The story, told in the third-person omniscient perspective, is of a young woman named Angharad Crewe, called Harry, who becomes a warrior in her adopted homeland of Damar.

The story is set in an alternate universe, taking place after the “Voodoo Wars”, a conflict between humans and the “Others”. The Others mainly consist of vampires, werewolves, and demons, though the main conflict occurs between humans and vampires. As a result of this war, “bad spots”, or places where black magic thrives, have appeared more frequently. Rae "Sunshine" Seddon, the pastry-making heroine of the novel, has the misfortune of being caught off-guard at her family's old lake side cabin and is abducted by a gang of vampires. She is confined to the ballroom of an abandoned mansion with Constantine, a vampire shackled there by vampires of a rival gang, led by Constantine’s enemy Bo...