TRANSLATIONS
Translations of the Homeric Greek words "Magister" utters can be found after this housekeeping page. I will not be providing a separate page for translations of Latin passages, because rough, loose, abbreviated translations are embedded in the chapters that make use of the 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 may want to keep the translation "chapter" open in a separate tab.
On to the warnings.
⚠️ CONTENT WARNINGS ⚠️
While the depictions of sexual activity in Ancilla are not exactly raunchy or smutty, this is still an extremely sexually explicit book. The protagonist and her mentor/dom/spiritual husband do not make love behind closed doors, and they are BDSM edge players. Adults only!
Users who wish to skip sexually explicit passages should avoid any chapter section that is marked by an asterisk (*).
Since the plot is character-driven, and the lovemaking scenes show character development, readers who skip the erotic sections risk losing track of the plot. As a workaround, I suggest reading my art book, Wild Is the Wind, before reading the soundbite edition of Ancilla. The art book is captioned, and comes with character descriptions and some plot detail. Some plot will be spoiled by reading the art book as background preparation for reading soundbite Ancilla and redacting the erotica, but I think it would be better to spoil the plot than to not understand what happens as the plot moves along. Context is key.
This is not an ideal way to read Ancilla, but it's something I came up with for a small number of people who said they wanted to read the book but didn't want to read anything explicit.
Regarding specific sections:
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 and financial hardship.
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.
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.
Copyright 2023 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.
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Ancilla: Serialized Edition
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