Ancilla

Content Warnings and Notes

⚠️ CONTENT WARNINGS ⚠️

While the depictions of sexual activity in Ancilla are not exactly raunchy or smutty, nor are they the sole focus or even the primary focus of the book, this is still extremely sexually explicit material. The protagonist and her mentor/dom/husband do not make love behind closed doors, and they are BDSM edge players. Adults only!

The needles and blades used in the section of the Gevurah chapter will probably be triggering to anybody afraid of sharp things and/or blood. Also, the description of bloodplay might trigger people who fight an urge to self-harm. (Wattpadians, our platform does not have page numbers, or I would provide page numbers here).

There is brief mention of choking in the Netzach chapter; the Chokmah chapter has an Air working that involves breath control used as a method of vampirism, which might trigger memories or flashbacks of smothering for some readers. 

From what I have read in Jenny Trout's "Jealous Haters Book Club" book reviews, it is common for descriptions of starvation or dieting to trigger people who have had eating disorders into relapse, so I should disclose that my protagonist spends more than half of the book starving due to food insecurity.

Chronic pain, vampiric starvation that closely mimics symptoms of clinical depression, and being generally emotionally overwhelmed make her contemplate suicide near the end of the book, and I have been warned that this could trigger some people who tend to self-harm.

There is discussion and depiction of homophobia because my protagonist is bisexual, and the book is set in the late 1980s to mid-1990s in Ohio. Anybody who is old enough to have survived that place and time knows how bad things were back then.

Beyond that... I'm sorry, but I have a hard time with content warnings because I haven't the foggiest idea what triggers people. Everyone is different. There are some things, some commonly encountered in real life, some not, that I find triggering. And to the best of my knowledge, there is no etiquette book for confused writers like me, so here I am, playing guessing games and hoping I don't cause somebody massive trauma just by writing words. If I have accidentally hit a trigger or a sore nerve or memory, put the book down, take a deep breath, do whatever you need to do to calm and ground yourself, and then, if you still want to keep reading, skim past the section that triggered you, and start reading again when you seem to have reached a safer part of the prose. Unfortunately, I can't come up with any advice more constructive than that, and I apologize from the bottom of my heart.

TRANSLATIONS

Translations of the Homeric Greek words "Magister" utters can be found in an appendix. I am not providing a similar page for the Latin phrases, because rough, loose, abbreviated translations are embedded in the chapters that make use of Latin quotes ("Binah" contains a short, rather famous one from Catullus; "Chesed" contains excerpts of the writings of Heloise and Abelard).

Readers who want to know what is being said in Greek may want to keep the translation page open in a separate tab. 

SOME GRATITUDE TO MY BETAS

 Many, many thanks to my betas, especially Kirsten K, who midwifed key parts of the manuscript almost from its inception ten years ago, including sections that were not in her areas of interest or passion. You've done your best to stand in for the professional freelance editing I couldn't afford to use, and I am probably one of the most obnoxious writers ever. I snap at anyone who offers criticism, even when I need and have solicited criticism. I am thin-skinned and crotchety. I am stubborn. I never take the bad news of "this needs work" well, and I take "this needs to be changed or cut out" even worse. If it is any consolation, if you are reading this, I did take your suggestions to heart and I implemented them, which you will see if you read the book again. Thanks for putting up with me.

LEGAL DECLARATIONS AND DISCLAIMERS (REITERATED)

Copyright 2023 by Sera Maddox Drake (print and ebook editions; Wattpad edition copyright 2024 by Sera Maddox Drake).

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or the author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

This book is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, companies, organizations, places, events, locales, and incidents are either used in a fictitious manner or are fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, actual companies or organizations, or actual events is purely coincidental. 

As of May 10, 2024, Ancilla has been featured in Wattpad After Dark's BDSM reading list.