While I have about a dozen or so stories mapped for my Arthurian series, spanning from the early 400’s to the mid 500’s. I decided to start with a trilogy about Peredur (the Welsh name for Percival). Partially I wanted to ease into historical fiction with him rather than with Arthur directly. I assumed people who know more about Dark Age Britain than me would be calling me out out left and right over historical blunders and I’d rather make those blunders with Peredur’s trilogy than Arthur’s series. So far that hasn’t happened, I’m relieved to say.

I also started with him because when I first outlined the trilogy, I anticipated it being more solidly YA. It saddens me a bit that younger people, and boys in particular, don’t read nearly as much as they used to. So because of that, and the fact that as of the time of Beyond the Wall’s release (in 2025) I have a 13-year-old son, I wanted to write a trilogy that my own son could enjoy, learn a bit of history from, and be presented with heroic protagonist who’s a good, moral, brave young man in Peredur. At least that’s how I’ve tried to write him. That’s true of Arthur and a couple other characters as well. I figure if my son, who doesn’t generally like reading, could enjoy this trilogy, other teens and young men might as well.

Well my publisher, J.F. Holmes, nudged me into making the Peredur trilogy a bit more mature, that way it could be enjoyable for all ages, not just Young Adults, so I did, taking inspiration from one of my favorite authors- Louis L’Amour. So I ratcheted up the action a bit, but kept the content at a soft “PG-13” level. Based on the positive reviews I’m getting on Amazon, I’d say that was smart advice on his part.

As for the rest of the story itself, well, I wanted a protagonist who could be a naive teenager- suitable for a YA novel. Right away I figured my best options were either Arthur himself, or Percival. As it happens, the most fleshed out version of Peredur/ Percival we have comes from Chrétien de Troyes’ medieval stories, so that’s basically the version I went with. He should be several years younger than Arthur, so that meant inserting him into the narrative a bit later in Arthur’s military career, which I did, though given how young Arthur himself begins that career, per my own timeline, Arthur still ended up only being in his mid-20’s.

The rest of the story is basically the result of me crafting a narrative around when and where I figured the two central battles of the novel, Celidon Coit and Guinnion Fort where most likely fought. That in turn informed my opinion on who the most likely enemy would have been. In this regard, there really weren’t any historical sources to help me out beyond very generalized details. Fortunately, there weren’t any sources to say none of what I wrote was impossible, either. So I did the best I could with the information that was available, and filled in the rest with what I thought could happen, and what would make a good story. Hopefully I’ve succeeded.