How a single visit in 2015 sparked the world of the Nightingale Mountain Trilogy.
In 2015, we walked the ancient streets of Ephesus for the first time. The stones beneath our feet seemed to whisper storiesโstories of ordinary men and women who once gathered there with courage, faith, and endurance. That visit planted the earliest seed of this trilogy. It stirred in us a longing to tell the story of the early Church in a way that would bring those first followers of Jesus closer to our readers today.
Standing in that place, we became pilgrims as much as novelists. The beauty, history, and spiritual depth of Ephesus stayed with us long after we left Turkey. It became clear that if we were going to write about the first-century world, the story would beginโand return again and againโto Ephesus.
The Historical World Behind the Story
Ephesus was one of the most influential cities in Asia Minor. As a hub of trade, politics, philosophy, and worship, its harbor connected the city to the wider Mediterranean, and its marble streets echoed with voices from every corner of the empire. At its peak under Roman rule, ancient Ephesus was a great metropolis of roughly 250,000 people. The cityโs scale and complexity allowed us to place our characters in a setting where ideas traveled quickly and where change was always near.
Ephesus was held between two mountains: Mount Pion (modern Panayฤฑr Daฤฤฑ) on the north and Mount Coressus (modern Bรผlbรผl Daฤฤฑ) on the south. Bรผlbรผl Daฤฤฑ means Nightingale Mountainโa detail that stayed with us and eventually provided the name for our trilogy. During that same 2015 journey, we visited Maryโs House near the summit of Bรผlbรผl Daฤฤฑ, a quiet stone chapel long associated with the final home of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Standing in that place impressed upon us the historical weight and spiritual resonance of the setting, and that moment became a lasting touchstone for the world we hoped to create.
During our 2015 journey, we also visited the ruins of the Basilica of St. John on Ayasuluk Hill โ the church traditionally built over the tomb of the Apostle John. Standing there, with the hills above and the plain below reaching toward the ancient harbor, we felt the weight of history and the abiding connection between the first-century Christian community and the world we wanted to bring to life in our trilogy.
Towering above the city was the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Its influence shaped Ephesian life socially, economically, and spiritually. The tension between temple culture and the growing community of followers of Jesus offered a rich backdrop for exploring the challenges and hopes of the earliest believers.
How Ephesus and Nightingale Mountain Shape the Trilogy
Ephesus forms the bustling, interconnected world around the story of Rachel and her familyโa narrative thread that spans all three books. Yet Nightingale Mountain is the true center of Rachelโs life. The homes, paths, and gatherings on the mountain become the defining landscape of her childhood and her coming of age. It is a place of refuge, belonging, and community.
The relationship between these two worldsโEphesus below and the mountain that rises above itโmirrors the balance at the heart of the trilogy. Ephesus provides movement, tension, and cultural complexity. Nightingale Mountain provides grounding, family, and spiritual clarity. Together, they shape Rachelโs understanding of the Good News and the relationships that sustain her.
Ephesus also plays a central role in the ministry of Paul, who spent significant time there during both his second and third missionary journeys. His extended stayโespecially the nearly three years during his third journeyโmade Ephesus one of the most important centers of his work. This historical reality provides the foundation for many of the interactions we portray in the trilogy. The Ephesian believers Paul nurtured, the conflicts he navigated, and the relationships he formed all offered rich narrative soil for weaving together the imagined story of Rachelโs family with the Scriptural account of Paulโs ministry.
Ephesus is also where readers first meet Mara. Though she emerges more fully in later books, her childhood experiencesโloss, questions, and connectionโare rooted in the Ephesian world. These early years shape the woman she becomes in Book 3. Many of the trilogyโs pivotal scenes draw from the places we walked in 2015: the agora, the hillside paths near Nightingale Mountain, and the homes where early believers gathered.
Because the trilogy alternates between the perspectives of Rachel (fictional but grounded in the social world of the first century) and Saul/Paul (rooted in Scripture), we needed a city that could hold both the imagined and the historical. Ephesus offered that balance. It allowed us to blend personal narratives with recorded events, weaving together a world that is both intimate and authentic.
Why Ephesus Still Matters
One of the striking things about walking through Ephesus in 2015 was the realization that the ancient world is not distant. The questions faced by the earliest followers of Jesusโidentity, belonging, courage, hopeโare the same questions we carry today.
Our hope has always been that these stories spark renewed interest in the world behind the New Testament. When early readers told us they reached for their Bibles to look up the people and events in the trilogy, we rejoiced. That was exactly what we hoped would happen.
Ephesus reminds us that God entrusted His Good News to ordinary men and women in the first centuryโand continues to entrust it to us today.
Author Note
This trilogy is our shared projectโyears of study, prayer, writing, and conversation shaped by the encouragement of family, friends, and scholars. Writing these pages brought us back to Ephesus again and again, returning in memory to the places that first stirred our imagination. We write with one voice as Diane and Dell Shiell, united under our shared pen name, D. D. Shiell.
Explore More
To explore additional posts connected to the world behind the trilogy, visit the Behind the Books category or browse Characters & World, Faith & History, and Updates & Releases.
Written by D. D. Shiell โ Authors of the Nightingale Mountain Trilogy