Ancilla is entered into the Romance category. I think. I entered this contest in between making outbound insurance sales calls, on a day that I was severely sleep-deprived from doing last-minute tweaks to prepare for the Wattys. 

UPDATE (9/4/24) - Did not win or place. 

Should not have entered. 

Sweet baby bunnies, if I'd known the judge/host was a super-conservative born-again fundamentalist Christian, I'd never have foisted Ancilla on her. 

She gave a truly awesome book, Camellia Carroll's Blood Bargain, third place after mentioning that there was stuff in it that offended her beliefs (presumably, the fact that the female main character is a witch, and the male main character is an incubus, a type of demon - this was a fantasy story, I'm pretty sure Carroll wasn't writing it as a work informed by faith and spirituality the way Ancilla absolutely was). 

She gave that rather tame book an award despite being appalled by some of the material in it - which is a testament to Carroll's awesomeness as a writer (everyone, please read Camellia Carroll. I'm serious).

If my judge read Ancilla in its entirety, with its graphic descriptions of kinky lovemaking, same-sex attractions, ceremonial magick, criticisms of traditional Christian morality, and tabletop role-playing games including games obviously based on Advanced Dungeons and Dragons and The Call of Cthulhu (both of which have been boycotted by churches for advocating "devil worship") I probably traumatized her for life. Yes, Ancilla has ALL THE CONTENT WARNINGS, but they wouldn't have been enough for people with her beliefs. She wouldn't have known all she was letting herself in for.

I feel like a heel now.