Art of The Arthurian Age

When I wrote The Retreat to Avalon, the first book in my historical fiction series, The Arthurian Age, one of my goals was to immerse the reader in the world that the historical King Arthur would have lived in. Most people think of the later Middle Ages, with plate armor and tall stone castles, rather than the grittier world of chain mail or scale armor and hilltop wooden fortresses of Dark Age Britain. This is where another kind of art is invaluable.

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, so I decided to include a small picture at the beginning of each chapter depicting a scene from the chapter. Finding a good artist who can work with the level of historical accuracy I apply to my writing is not easy. And it is not cheap, but this is a labor of love. I’ve been lucky to find two such artists so far.

Dmitry Yakhovsky did the cover for The Retreat to Avalon and the cover and interior illustrations for the second book in the series, The Strife of Camlann. He also did the cover for my related novella, Hengist. For The Retreat to Avalon, the internal illustrations were drawn by Luka Cakić. You can click on their names to read articles about them and find links to more of their fantastic work.

Below, I am posting the images from the books, with a little information about each. As time goes on and new books are added to the series, I will add to this page, so check in whenever I release a new book. As a bonus, I am posting some images that were not released, for various reasons. I hope you enjoy them, but I do own the copyright to all the pictures included here and I reserve all rights. I do not give permission for any entity to use these images for the purposes of AI. These artists work hard at their craft and should not have it stolen from them.

Artwork of Book I, The Retreat to Avalon

Artwork of Book II, The Strife of Camlann

Hengist Cover

Hengist is not technically a part of The Arthurian Age trilogy. Partly because it is a novella and would have made the series four (or six- more on that later) books, but mostly because The Arthurian Age is seen from the perspective of the Britons, while Hengist is from the perspective of the Anglo-Saxons that the Britons fought against. The fact that no one had made a story based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s theories of Hengist, and the way that it melds into the opening of the Arthurian Age, made me stop and write that story. I’m glad I did, because the research is making book 3, Three Wicked Revelations even better.

Alternative Covers and Illustrations

Here are some alternate covers and images that weren’t used in the books for various reasons. I hope you enjoy them.

Please check back in, because more will come!