Unholy Ground: The Real Darkness Behind The Mists of Zealotry
A Place Just Shy of Paradise
There was a place I played as a child — a hill nestled in a sea of a thousand others. It felt like the closest thing to freedom. But even then, something was… off. Not loudly. Just a single degree of tilt — subtle enough to miss, but enough to make the world feel askew.
Most nights, the nearby dam would breathe out mists that pooled in the valley below. Fog clung to the air, cloaking everything in stillness — until the wind stirred, and the sun finally burned it away. It was like a slow, secret ritual — the land veiled in shifting white, holy and eerie all at once.
A place just shy of paradise.
And yet, the adults never seemed to notice. Not the beauty. Not the strangeness. They were too busy pretending not to see the bad — so consumed by denial they couldn’t even see the good. That disconnect stayed with me. That willful blindness. It seeded something dark.
It became the soil where The Mists of Zealotry would one day grow.
The Lore That Lurks Beneath
The entire story is a metaphor — a study in sanctimonious cruelty. This setting should be a paradise. A kind of heaven, one that rains wealth down upon the surrounding districts that quietly supply the tools needed to sustain such abundance. But the spanner in the works was pure human greed.
I built an intricate web of lore around this town — how it rose to power, how it sustains its abundance, and how it quietly exploits the world around it. None of that lore made it into the novel directly. It exists behind the scenes, the wooden spoon that stirs flavour into the story.
Meet the Deacon
We get only fleeting glimpses of the terror. Brief, telling encounters with the Deacon are enough to understand the grip he holds over everything and everyone. You don’t need to see the whole monster to feel its weight.
Even as a peacemaker, he maintains a menacing, calculating sort of aura — but toward the end of the book, as he revels in the afterglow of murdering his wife, we see the monster in full form, head on. His sermon is a hungry and excited condemnation, inspired by the many fire-and-brimstone revivalist preaching videos I watched whilst researching for this novel.
A Childhood Unease
A few things about this style of preaching struck a chord with me. The preachers all started low and calm, like talking to a friend. Almost like they’re giving people time to settle into their seats before the bold impassioned speech begins.
When Olaf begins his sermon, it’s poetic and beautiful — because these types are always silver tongued. He draws you in with the stunningly intimate details of his nightmare, speaking of himself like a helpless child asleep in his bed.
“And lo, the Angel of the Lord did take me in the night, by the throat, and by the soul. Higher, and higher still, until I saw not stars, but roots. Not clouds but tilled soil — the tilled soil of our Lord’s garden. And the ground wept.”
This particular part was inspired by a sermon I heard as a child, attending a church camp I had no business being a part of. I grew up completely separated from religion and was always encouraged to question. That priest made me incredibly uncomfortable, yet the other children happily played around him and sat upon his knee.
He told stories of the angels he spoke to on a peer-to-peer level — and it never sat right with me. It wasn’t the beliefs that unsettled me. I could handle the idea that people found comfort in faith, even as a kid. What I couldn’t wrap my head around was the blatant falseness of it all.
Watching people pretend that this man conversed with angels — when I had just received a rather violent lesson about lying — must have set something off balance.
As I got older and thought harder about it, I began to see the tendrils of control hidden beneath the light. It reminded me of how an angler fish catches its prey — a little light dangled out for the desperate, lost in the dark.
The angler fish priest went completely unnoticed. Disguised — as they so often are — as a helper of the Lord.
I later heard about a conviction and thought: Yep.
It was a disturbing, eye-opening moment. But I wasn’t surprised.
What I felt was overwhelming empathy for any child harmed. A burning anger toward the predator — and toward any parent naive enough to think an adult who pretends to speak to angels is someone safe to leave kids with, unsupervised.
But not an ounce of shock.
Olaf’s Revelation
These were incredibly dark emotions to chew on — and I channeled them into this novel. I understood, even as a child, that I was walking into something ancient. An institution older than me. And as I looked deeper into the darkness, I started seeing those same messages reflected back in the light — just far less filtered.
From a blend of Pentecostal preachers and fossilized rage, Olaf’s sermon was born:
“Yes, they screamed. I heard their cries and I asked the angel, ‘What are these moans from the dirt beneath me?’ And he said to me — he said, ‘Olaf, these are carrots. These are cabbages, potatoes and beets. They know their day is come. And still they go quietly into the boiling pot.’ And I begged him — horrified — you see, ladies and gentlemen — it is natural to question what is in front of us — But I said, ‘Surely an act as simple and fulfilling as eating could not be so violent?’ And do you know what that angel said unto me? The angel told me, ‘To them, it is a holocaust, Olaf, inescapable death. But the Lord has gifted you with the suffering of hunger to forgive yourself for eating.’ We must do what we can to survive.”
To watch this previously peaceful town devolve so mercilessly into a violent bloodthirsty horde is quite something. Especially in contrast to the surrounding peace and calm. It always had been that way. My characters gave everything they had and barely made a dent because that is life.
Will there be a sequel?
Yes! I started writing it months after the first book was first released back in 2023 — I put it down because I wrote a scene so dark that it depressed me dangerously, but it is back in the works. The sequel will dig far deeper into Olaf and just how beastly he truly is, into the cracked bones of the world outside Ivorton. We’ll learn who Grit Whitaker really was. We’ll watch Wiggie Thomas reach for every tool in her kit, and we’ll follow Elijah with his daughter on a daring escape that may (hopefully) just burn the whole lie to the ground.
If this darkness calls to you, [pre-order/buy The Mists of Zealotry here]. Or follow me for updates on the sequel—the reckoning is coming.