What the critics are saying about Ancilla
Love is brutal, bloody, and ecstatic in this passionate romance.
This first installment of Drake’s trilogy follows a nameless narrator (she’s often called Ancilla, a Latin word for a female slave) who’s a nerdy, fantasy-gaming, bisexual, red-headed college dropout, disowned by her Catholic parents for her sexual adventurousness and now living in an unnamed rustbelt city. She meets a distinguished librarian twice her age with a taste for occult literature and a BDSM fetish; she dubs him Magister and begs him to make her his submissive. A whirlwind of kink ensues—with informed consent and safe-words carefully established—in which Magister whips Ancilla with a riding crop, pierces her with needles, cuts her with knives, and performs a traumatic magic ceremony that causes her to black out and dream of the underworld. Ancilla loves the abuse, and the megaton-scale orgasms that follow (“We explode as one, we cry out as one, we burn together and are One”). Fortunately, Magister isn’t cruel: he’s extravagantly respectful of Ancilla’s desires and insists that she return to college and build an independent life. Unfortunately, her budding dominant side threatens to undo the relationship when he can’t take the kind of pain he’s been dishing out. Drake’s erotic saga is full of graphic sex, detailed BDSM scenarios, and intricate tutorials on occult sex lore (“A lot of it is Thelemic sex magick, with an eye to gnosis through ecstasy and self-perfection, but a good part of the practicum comes from Siberian and Finnish shamanism”). The prose sounds rather academic at times, but at its best it conveys the charged thrill of BDSM and the sense of intimacy and release that flows from Ancilla’s voluntary surrender to sexual torment: “‘I love you,’ I cry, when the third blow lands, burning like fire….Eventually, the blows stop, and he’s behind me, leaning into me, kissing tears off my cheeks and sweat off my neck.” BDSM afficionados will love it, but normies may find it too much.
A richly imagined, lurid love story that’s not for the faint of heart.
KIRKUS REVIEWS
LITERARY TITAN
Sera Maddox Drake’s Ancilla: Master, Teach Me is an occult, sexually explicit BDSM romance that tracks a bisexual woman in late-80s to mid-90s Rust Belt Ohio as she unravels a strict sedevacantist Catholic upbringing and stumbles into a relationship with a charismatic magus who becomes her mentor, dom, and soulmate. The story is built around Western esotericism (Thelema and Golden Dawn style Kabbalah), and the chapters are explicitly organized around the Tree of Life sephiroth, with each section acting like a rung on a ladder of transformation rather than “just” a new plot beat. Along the way, the book leans into edge play and on-page sex, plus harder emotional material like food insecurity, chronic pain, vampiric starvation that mirrors depression, and moments where the protagonist gets close to the cliff of suicidal thinking.
What landed for me first was the author’s directness about what the book is and what it is not. The content warnings are frank in a way that feels almost like Drake is taking you aside before you enter the room, making eye contact, and saying, “This gets intense.” That honesty gave me trust, especially because the erotic material isn’t treated as a naughty bonus but as part of the protagonist’s learning curve. Sex here is not a fade-to-black reward. It’s language. It’s ritual. It’s also messy, risky, and sometimes emotionally heavy, which fits the “mentor/dom/soulmate” setup the author spells out early in the narrative.
I also kept thinking about the author’s choice to foreground the moral complications of the spiritual framework itself. Drake doesn’t pretend Western esotericism is clean or culturally neutral, and she names the colonial “cafeteria” dynamic head-on, including the way the characters “loot and pillage” ideas from oppressed cultures. That doesn’t magically resolve the tension, but it does change the feel. Instead of the book asking me to admire the system, it asks me to watch people reach for meaning through a flawed system, sometimes sincerely, sometimes blindly. The Tree-of-Life chapter structure reinforces that. It’s as if the author is saying: growth can be real even when the tools are imperfect.
By the end, I felt like Ancilla is best approached as dark, reflective erotic romance with occult and paranormal undertones, not as a tidy love story or a neutral “intro to magic.” If you like intimacy that’s explicit and psychologically charged, and you’re also curious about spirituality, power exchange, and the way belief can reshape a person for better and worse, you’ll more than appreciate this story.
THE PRAIRIES REVIEW
A philosophical initiation cloaked in BDSM ritual and mystic yearning…
Drake weaves mysticism, erotic power dynamics, and philosophical inquiry into a raw, psychologically charged coming-of-age narrative in this compelling novel. The story follows an unnamed protagonist, a young woman fragmented by hunger (bodily, emotional, spiritual), who finds herself under the tutelage of Magister, a commanding figure whose role, much like hers, is mutable. Together they navigate a metaphysical landscape structured by the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, each chapter ascending a Sephirah, as if pain and knowledge might be climbed like rungs to transcendence.
Drake’s world is not a literal one; it operates more like a symbolic landscape, echoing alchemical, Hermetic, and mystical traditions. The setting: an ever-shifting fusion of dreamlike interiors, ritual chambers, and occasionally grounded moments of realism, functions as a psychological and spiritual map rather than a geographic one. Time, place, and identity blur, often giving the book the surreal texture of an initiation rite rather than a linear plot. That said, this is not an abstract or detached novel: it is deeply, even painfully personal, driven by the narrator’s yearning for knowledge, love, safety, and above all, sovereignty over her own body and self.
The prose, often elliptical and steeped in untranslated Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, mirrors the novel’s ritualistic density. At times it reads like scripture rewritten by someone who’s survived it. At others, it lands with a stark modernity, especially in moments of pain: the hunger of being queer in a straight world, of being a girl in a place that only values what it consumes. The BDSM elements are not for shock or ornamentation. They are studied with the same care as theology or metaphysics. Submission becomes a philosophical act. “What does it mean to obey?” becomes “What does it mean to choose?” and eventually, “What does it mean to be free?” In this, Ancilla joins a rare canon of books that take both sex and spirit seriously without stripping either of its difficulty.
This is not an easy read. It demands intellectual engagement, emotional openness, and tolerance for ambiguity. The plot is secondary to transformation; scenes unfold in ways that resist conventional resolution; and the content is intentionally provocative. But for readers willing to enter its labyrinth, the rewards are profound. The novel offers a radical rethinking of power and divinity, one that refuses to separate the body from the soul, or pain from wisdom.
A singular tale, braided with blood, mystery, and intellect, that dares to fuse the sacred and the profane.
BookCAMP/Printed Word Reviews
An erotic exploration of selfhood, Sera Maddox Drake’s Ancilla: Master, Teach Me follows one woman’s pursuit of spiritual mastery through her submission to the man who is both her teacher and soulmate.
Ancilla opens with a scene where, as a child, the titular protagonist teaches a younger girl to conquer her fear of the monkey bars by doing them with her. This is apt foreshadowing for the mentoring relationship that is to come. The first chapter follows Ancilla throughout her early years, tracing the emergence of her erotic predilections as well as the social, familial, and financial devastation that they cause her. The true arc of the story, however, begins with her meeting the man she will come to know as Erastes; her lover, teacher, master, and soulmate. As Erastes guides Ancilla through a journey of spiritual self-determination and rebirth, which primarily occurs through a hybrid variety of Kabbalistic magick, their relationship deepens as well. Ancilla discovers the ways in which pain and submission are her path to enlightenment, as well as how the line between suffering and ecstasy is so easily blurred – if there at all. As Erastes teaches Ancilla the art of forging her own destiny however, it results in her greatest suffering yet.
The most compelling moments within Ancilla are those between the protagonist and her lover. Drake approaches the power differential of their BDSM relationship as dominant and submissive, as well as their spiritual relationship as teacher and student, with surprising nuance and tenderness. Erastes subverts the stereotypical depictions of a male dominant, and demonstrates how consent and care are foundational to even the most extreme expressions of passion. Drake continuously underscores the fact that while there is incredible pleasure for both parties in the performance of these asymmetric relationships, they are also a means to an end. Namely, Ancilla’s ability to be a teacher and guide for others. Beneath the continual negotiation of a relationship that is entrenched in the particularities of BDSM subculture and Thelemic sex magick, there are conversations that anyone can relate to. What happens when one partner is unable to meet the needs of another? How is trust necessary for exploration? How do we reconcile personal ambitions with interpersonal commitments? Drake’s approach to these debates through the lens of consensual power imbalance makes for refreshing answers to age-old questions.
While the historical, philosophical, and spiritual topics covered in Ancilla certainly provide depth to the relationship dynamics that Drake is exploring, they also detract from the book’s accessibility to a wider audience. Those not previously familiar with Hellenic myths, Arthurian literature, psychoanalytic philosophy, or the traditions of the Hermetic order of the Golden Dawn, may find themselves struggling to follow Ancilla’s conversations and internal monologue. This is a shame, considering that much of Ancilla and Erastes’ romance can be found in their intellectual sparring, and Ancilla’s spiritual journey is directly understood through the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. Drake does include an afterword on the book’s structure around Kabbalah, an appendix for Greek and Latin translations, a reading list, and an illustration gallery, all of which some readers may find helpful in digesting the more theoretical content. Others may balk at what could feel like a homework assignment. Despite these hurdles, even the most novice layman can find something to enjoy in Drake’s tantalizing story of love, passion, and spiritual deliverance. Historical erotica nerds, eat your heart out.
BOOKVIEW REVIEW
When her life falls apart, a young woman is pulled into an intense journey of passion, mysticism, and self-discovery in Drake’s haunting novel. Three years after losing her scholarship and being disowned for loving the wrong girl, a young woman is starting over with nothing: no name, no money, and no sense of who she’s meant to become. A chance meeting with an unassuming librarian leads her into a world of arcane knowledge and erotic ritual, where the line between teacher and lover begins to dissolve.
The world of this BDSM romance is symbolic, fluid, and psychologically charged. Scenes take place in dreamlike interiors, timeless chambers, and a crumbling version of 1980s Ohio, all stitched together by hunger—for knowledge, for freedom, for wholeness. The BDSM dynamic between student and teacher isn’t merely provocative; it is where the novel confronts its most urgent questions. With graphic scenes of edge play, including blood and breath control, the novel doesn’t shy away from discomfort but uses it to probe deeper issues: Can surrender be a path to sovereignty? Can pain unlock transcendence? Names shift. Roles blur. The protagonist remains unnamed, mirroring her fluid identity and resistance to easy definition. The story’s queerness, chronic pain, and spiritual urgency pulse beneath every ritual and philosophical exchange. At its heart, this is a novel that asks not just what we’re willing to suffer for truth, but who we must become to survive it.
Uncompromising, dense, and erotically charged.
READERS' FAVORITE
Ancilla is the first book in a trilogy by Sera Maddox Drake. After a religiously constrained childhood, a young woman begins experimenting with sex and learns that she enjoys a wide range of partners and activities. With each lover, she becomes less inhibited during the act and refuses to accept the money and creature comforts associated with the deprogramming her family offers. She lists her experiences with each person and what she learned from them before describing a significant and powerful relationship with a male librarian. On her twenty-first birthday, she submits to the man and begins her education on practices of domination. Magick, edging, and sharp object play follow, and she readily assumes the role of an ancilla, learning as an apprentice, a student, and a sexual submissive to a well-read and experienced dominant. Her Magister teaches her the power of the elements, and she's surprised by her aptitude.
Sera Maddox Drake leads readers through each tantalizing scene while revealing a character with a unique realness. With its raw emotion and penetrating dive into the protagonist's mind, readers may think, "Surely, this must be a memoir and not a work of fiction." Readers who are new to this genre will amass a great deal of knowledge as they absorb the main character's diary-type entries. This isn't my first read of this type of work, but I discovered many new things about the history of BDSM. The young woman's living conditions are extreme, resulting in very hard choices between a small number of expenses, and limiting comforts many people take for granted. The protagonist is led through lessons that provide opportunities for self-discovery, and I have never felt a fully involved love story radiating off every page with any other book of this nature. Readers who are ready to absorb the world of BDSM and are not prone to triggers will truly enjoy Ancilla.