Prey Tell: A Brother's Best Friend Romance: 1 (Ravaged Castle)

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This book is incredibly well-researched and full of truth, going into greater detail and shedding more light on a number of prominent sexual abuse cases, and the reality of the high cost to women who bravely come forward to speak up and tell their stories to continue to make society safer for all of us. This book is a must-read in contributing to women being free to offer all that we have to give in society to truly flourish and thrive as God created us to. I hope and pray many women will find their voice and courage in reading this book, to be validated in their experiences, and emboldened to speak out and take action against injustice, whether at home, school, church, the workplace, or in any institution or scenario where women are oppressed. As the second youngest Ravage brother, I’ve spent my entire adult life rectifying our tainted family name and keeping my urges behind closed doors.

The premise struggles out of the gate. Juliet is 18 and headed to college. She doesn't want to be the only virgin, so she asks her brother's best friend, Chase, to help her out. He says no because he thinks she is too good for his dark soul. She feels humiliated and they don't speak to each much for the next 8 years. Please note that this is billed as a romance with antihero, but Chase is not that. Chase is a good guy with a bad father, and his only "darkness" is his kinks. He's not like, killing people or actively trying to ruin the lives of others. So his darkness is just the stain from his parent's history, and not his own. Everything he does in his life is to prove that he's not like his dad. As far as relationships with women, he requires contracts and only sees them for one night. Not exactly anything sinister. Prey Tell is a devastating look at how culture, theology, and economics combine to uphold abusers and to silence those who try to speak the truth in our day and age. Tiffany Bluhm lays out all the ways it costs women to speak up, inviting us into the terror of this situation while also asking us to grapple with our own role in enabling this cycle to continue. A must-read--a truly difficult read--for anyone who longs to see justice upheld in our world." Prey Tell offers an urgent word to followers of Jesus, challenging the church to believe women and form cultures that protect the vulnerable, advocate for victims, and practice transparency. If you care about the church’s culture and witness, buy Prey Tell in bulk.”—Bryan Halferty, lead pastor of Anchor Church, Tacoma, WashingtonAfter some self-reflection, she knows that despite being compatible on paper, Dylan doesn’t make her heart race. In a bold move, she puts herself out there one more time. For those struggling to identify areas where they might be enabling abuse, this book will serve as an X-ray, revealing weaknesses and spaces that we must improve. During your commute: If you take public transportation or have a long commute, you may find it helpful to use that time to read. I read this excellent book with a mixture of gratitude and sadness: gratitude for the wisdom offered for leaders in the church and beyond who are charged with handling reports of sexual harassment and abuse, and sadness that I did not have this tool sooner. Tiffany Bluhm weaves her own experiences with carefully researched information that sheds light where we most need to see and face the truth. I encourage you to read with an open mind and heart, ready and willing to play your part as an advocate for justice and healing. We can and must do better." Ms. Bluhm speaks directly to the Christian church, which has since the Biblical times silenced women who were abused, whose names were tainted in history due to men in authority taking advantage of them. Today, we still see in the news powerful pastors and church leaders who have preyed upon women. She asks us to speak up, like Nathan in 2 Samuel who spoke up to authority (King David) and stood as an ally to Bathsheba. We can also look toward our Savior in how to react in these situations. When Jesus stood by the adulterous women, he did not ask what she did to deserve death by stoning, he drew a line in the sand between her and the Pharisees (ensuring her physical safety) and he then confronted her harassers and spoke to her with tenderness and compassion. We are to be an ally to women who have been hurt and believe them, no matter what.

She speaks—out of experience, or out of the stories of many others—the stories that are left untold, the small things that build up to big things. She writes of how women may feel uncomfortable with a comment or a touch, but they feel too indebted to the male in power to question them or speak up. Women, Bluhm says, are forced to work within a broken system, and it’s the same system that forced Hagar into surrogacy, that summoned Vashti to parade in front of drunken partiers, that raped Bathesheba, and dragged the adulterous women—so-called—into the public sphere while her male counterpart was conspicuously absent. So, why does abuse happen? How does it happen? The book presents several well-articulated, thoroughly-researched reasons and connects them with real-world examples. Bluhm navigates her way through complicated and complex subject matter, doing each topic justice without sacrificing readability or relevancy to the reader. The #MeToo movement, racism, or gender inequality could – and have – easily warrant their respective books – but this relatively short work shortchanges none of them. I am sure most women can recollect or think of a time when they or someone they knew were treated poorly, sexually harassed or abused or felt forced to keep quiet after a man in authority abused his power . Right now, in the news, we hear about it frequently, in the church, government, media… everywhere.

If you have experienced abuse of any kind, I caution you to read this book with care. While I believe you will feel seen, heard, and affirmed in what you experienced, it might be hard to read at times because it seems like she is telling your story. This book might also help one realize that what one is going through or went through in relationships or in the work place was not normal or healthy but abusive and toxic. Even if you have never suffered abuse, I believe men and women will find this book disturbing because of the truth that is being shared has long been hidden, denied, ignored, minimized, dismissed, excused, etc. and Bluhm breaks down all of those barriers in this brave book. Eight years after Chase Ravage shut her down, Juliet Parker finds herself at her engagement party seeking out the man who still consumes her thoughts, not her husband-to-be.

What if we could hold space for women who have been harmed, who have been humiliated, and who have been silenced? Lament alongside them? Ensure them that they are seen, that their stories matter, and that they will be treated with the utmost care? What if our churches, kitchen tables, and faith gatherings were the safest of places for them to process those experiences? What if silence weren’t spiritual? What if we not only listened but also committed to the process of healing? Of wholeness?” D.L. Mayfield, author of The Myth of the American Dream: Reflections on Affluence, Autonomy, Safety, and Power Tiffany Bluhm’s book “Prey Tell: Why We Silence Women Who Tell the Truth and How Everyone Can Speak Up” tells the stories of the “prey”ed upon women who have stood up against their abusers and how the world has reacted to their bravery. She (Bluhm) sets up the book in three sections: Why we silence women who tell the truth, How we silence women and How everyone can speak up. Bluhm tells the stories of so many women who have been hurt and abused and how it is our responsibility to speak up and stand up for those women, to believe their stories and to hold those who hurt others accountable for their actions.

Prey Tell Summary

Prey Tell offers an urgent word to followers of Jesus, challenging the church to believe women and form cultures that protect the vulnerable, advocate for victims, and practice transparency. If you care about the church's culture and witness, buy Prey Tell in bulk." I’m also encouraged by the transparency of RZIM. It would have been easy to cover this up and keep it quiet—and indeed, that appeared to have been the case when Ravi was at the helm. They did the right thing and have been forthright and honest, allowing the formerly silenced women to tell their stories. Bluhm writes about how this power imbalance often forces women into silence. They must keep their stories silent or face the loss of the job, finances, and reputation. She relates to readers the story of Christine Blasey Ford, whose long-kept secret of sexual assault was brought into the national limelight largely against her will and has negatively impacted her. Women often stay silent because speaking out is worse. (And if a Republican example offends you, consider the lifelong effect Bill Clinton’s adultery has had on Monica Lewinsky—and how little it has had on Clinton.

Thoroughly researched and easy to read, this book provides a broad overview of where we are as a culture, why women often remain silent in the face of abuse, and what we can do to make lasting change. Bluhm vulnerably gives us snippets of her own story, which add a certain gravitas to her academic style. The last part is about what we can do to change and, frankly, it’s disheartening that Bluhm must use so many words to explain what should be self-evident. Perhaps most powerfully, she writes that the emotional/physical/sexual abuse of women is not just a woman’s problem. It is a man’s problem. It is decidedly not enough for men to not harass, assault, silence, slander, and destroy women. Male allyship for gendered equality is absolutely necessary. Men must not be neutral, but must wield their power to destroy these destructive systems. I read this excellent book with a mixture of gratitude and sadness: gratitude for the wisdom offered for leaders in the church and beyond who are charged with handling reports of sexual harassment and abuse, and sadness that I did not have this tool sooner. Tiffany Bluhm weaves her own experiences with carefully researched information that sheds light where we most need to see and face the truth. I encourage you to read with an open mind and heart, ready and willing to play your part as an advocate for justice and healing. We can and must do better.”—Nancy Beach, leadership coach, Slingshot Group; author of Gifted to Lead: The Art of Leading as a Woman in the Church Belinda J. Bauman, author of Brave Souls: Experiencing the Audacious Power of Empathy; cofounder of #SilenceIsNotSpiritual Tiffany Bluhm's Prey Tell asks readers to dive into why it's so easy to not believe women when they come forward with stories of sexual harassment or assault. She did great research for this book and pulls from many examples from society from the past thirty or so years, but more importantly she focuses on how the church fails in this area. The church has failed many victims and protected men because they are powerful and charismatic. Bluhm not only calls out these instances, but also writes how we can and should do better.

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