Ancilla: SOUNDBITE EDITION. (SERIALIZED, MATURE SECTIONS MARKED)

Book Teasers, Content Warnings, and Thanks to my Betas

I DO NOT CONSENT TO MY CONTENT BEING USED TO TRAIN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

AND a book teaser created by my friend sulkytae - who is absolutely amazing. I love what she did with the editing. (If you need a book trailer, message her)

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. 

This is an extremely sexually explicit book. Adults only! 

Users who wish to skip the 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.

Regarding specific sections:

I have been advised that the needles and blades used in the last few pages of the Gevurah chapter will probably be triggering to anybody afraid of sharp things or bloodplay. Also that it might trigger people who fight an urge to self-mutilate.

The Netzach chapter and the later part of the Chokmah chapter contain breath play. Netzach makes use of choking and smothering. Chokmah has vampirism by breath-eating. Please be aware that these are not safe activities. For the most part I try to restrict my descriptions of BDSM, and lovemaking in general, to things that are more or less safe to practice, but there is no safe way to throttle, smother, or otherwise asphyxiated a partner. Those activities are risky by nature, and I only include them because "Magister," as a magic-user, is an Air elemental, and it made sense to have him do things that play with the element of Air. Do not try to imitate him. Ancilla is a work of magical realism. As such, it is not meant to perfectly reflect reality. 

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 mimics clinical depression in its symptoms, 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.