Ancilla

This is an extremely sexually explicit book. Adults only! 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. From what I have read in Jenny Trout’s “Jealous Haters 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 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 early to mid-1990s in the American Midwest. 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.