Tag Archives: Captivity & Confinement

Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire

Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire

Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire book cover

Beneath the Sugar Sky, the third book in McGuire’s Wayward Children series, returns to Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children in a standalone contemporary fantasy for fans of all ages. At this magical boarding school, children who have experienced fantasy adventures are reintroduced to the “real” world.

When Rini lands with a literal splash in the pond behind Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children, the last thing she expects to find is that her mother, Sumi, died years before Rini was even conceived. But Rini can’t let Reality get in the way of her quest – not when she has an entire world to save! (Much more common than one would suppose.) If she can’t find a way to restore her mother, Rini will have more than a world to save: she will never have been born in the first place. And in a world without magic, she doesn’t have long before Reality notices her existence and washes her away. Good thing the student body is well-acquainted with quests…

A tale of friendship, baking, and derring-do. Warning: May contain nuts.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Fatmisia
  • Transmisia
  • Racism mentioned
  • Misgendering
  • Eating disorders mentioned
  • Death of a parent
  • Torture
  • Kidnapping & captivity
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Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker and Wendy Xu

Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker & Wendy Xu

Nova Huang knows more about magic than your average teen witch. She works at her grandmothers’ bookshop, where she helps them loan out spell books and investigate any supernatural occurrences in their New England town.

One fateful night, she follows reports of a white wolf into the woods, and she comes across the unexpected: her childhood crush, Tam Lang, battling a horse demon in the woods. As a werewolf, Tam has been wandering from place to place for years, unable to call any town home.

Pursued by dark forces eager to claim the magic of wolves and out of options, Tam turns to Nova for help.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism mentioned
  • Misgendering
  • Child abuse
  • Minor physical injuries
  • Death of a mother & father
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Cults
  • Animal abuse
  • Homelessness

We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal

We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal

We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal book cover

Zafira is the Hunter, disguising herself as a man when she braves the cursed forest of the Arz to feed her people. Nasir is the Prince of Death, assassinating those foolish enough to defy his autocratic father, the sultan. If Zafira was exposed as a girl, all of her achievements would be rejected; if Nasir displayed his compassion, his father would punish him in the most brutal of ways. Both Zafira and Nasir are legends in the kingdom of Arawiya–but neither wants to be. War is brewing, and the Arz sweeps closer with each passing day, engulfing the land in shadow. When Zafira embarks on a quest to uncover a lost artifact that can restore… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism & misogyny
  • Child emotional and verbal abuse & neglect
  • Blood, gore & injury depiction including dead bodies
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother & father
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a cousin
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Torture
  • Imprisonment & captivity
  • Kidnapping & blackmail
  • War themes discussed
  • Animal death & hunting

World After by Susan Ee

World After by Susan Ee

World After by Susan Ee book cover

When a group of people capture Penryn’s sister Paige, thinking she’s a monster, the situation ends in a massacre. Paige disappears. Humans are terrified. Mom is heartbroken. Penryn drives through the streets of San Francisco looking for Paige. Why are the streets so empty? Where is everybody? Her search leads her into the heart of the angels’ secret plans where she catches a glimpse of their motivations, and learns the horrifying extent to which the angels are willing to go. Meanwhile, Raffe hunts for his wings. Without them, he can’t rejoin the angels, can’t take his rightful place as… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism, on-page
  • Sexism
  • Parent with paranoid schizophrenia
  • Hallucinations & delusions mentioned
  • Graphic blood & gore depiction
  • Body horror
  • Dead bodies
  • Involuntary body modifications
  • Medical experimentations
  • Cannibalism
  • Torture & psychological torture, on-page
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Gun & sword violence
  • Physical assault
  • Imprisonment
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Explosions
  • Building collapse recounted
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Angelfall by Susan Ee

Angelfall by Susan Ee

Angelfall by Susan Ee book cover

It’s been six weeks since angels of the apocalypse descended to demolish the modern world. Street gangs rule the day while fear and superstition rule the night. When warrior angels fly away with a helpless little girl, her seventeen-year-old sister Penryn will do anything to get her back. Anything, including making a deal with an enemy angel. Raffe is a warrior who lies broken and wingless on the street. After eons of fighting his own battles, he finds himself being rescued from a desperate situation by a half-starved teenage girl… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism
  • Misogyny
  • Slut-shaming
  • Sexual harassment
  • Sex work, implied
  • Parental abandonment recounted
  • Parent with paranoid schizophrenia
  • Delusions and hallucinations mentioned
  • Nightmares
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Graphic blood and gore depiction
  • Dead bodies and body parts
  • Cannibalism
  • Nonconsensual body modification (theme)
  • Graphic physical injuries
  • Dismemberment
  • Graphic human experimentation
  • Graphic scars
  • Death of children discussed
  • Murder and attempted murder
  • Knife & gun violence
  • Physical assault
  • Torture
  • Poisoning
  • Kidnapping and captivity
  • War themes
  • Animal attack
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The Death of Mrs Westaway by Ruth Ware

The Death of Mrs Westaway by Ruth Ware

On a day that begins like any other, Hal receives a mysterious letter bequeathing her a substantial inheritance. She realizes very quickly that the letter was sent to the wrong person—but also that the cold-reading skills she’s honed as a tarot card reader might help her claim the money.

Soon, Hal finds herself at the funeral of the deceased…where it dawns on her that there is something very, very wrong about this strange situation and the inheritance at the centre of it.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Homomisia
  • Sex work discussed
  • Child abuse recounted
  • Disownment & familial estrangement
  • Cheating
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • PTSD
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Alcohol abuse recounted
  • Dubious consent to medication
  • Teen pregnancy
  • Miscarriage & abortion mentioned
  • Infertility mentioned
  • Emesis
  • Hospital
  • Minor blood & gore depiction and physical injuries
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother & father
  • Death of a grandmother
  • Death of a sister
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Strangulation
  • Car accident
  • Disappearance of a loved one
  • Blackmail
  • Captivity recounted
  • Poverty themes & eviction
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The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

Lo Blacklock, a journalist who writes for a travel magazine, has just been given the assignment of a lifetime: a week on a luxury cruise with only a handful of cabins. The sky is clear, the waters calm, and the veneered, select guests jovial as the exclusive cruise ship, the Aurora, begins her voyage in the picturesque North Sea.

At first, Lo’s stay is nothing but pleasant: the cabins are plush, the dinner parties are sparkling, and the guests are elegant. But as the week wears on, frigid winds whip the deck, gray skies fall, and Lo witnesses what she can only describe as a dark and terrifying nightmare: a woman being thrown overboard. The problem? All passengers remain accounted for and so, the ship sails on as if nothing has happened, despite Lo’s desperate attempts to convey that something (or someone) has gone terribly, terribly wrong. 

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Ableism
  • Sexual assault
  • Sexual harassment
  • Cheating mentioned
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • PTSD
  • Alcohol abuse
  • Emesis
  • Cancer
  • Murder
  • Drowning
  • Home invasion
  • Gun violence
  • Kidnapping & captivity
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The Initial Insult by Mindy McGinnis

The Initial Insult by Mindy McGinnis

The Initial Insult by Mindy McGinnis book cover

Tress Montor knows that her family used to mean something—until she didn’t have a family anymore. When her parents disappeared seven years ago while driving her best friend home, Tress lost everything. She might still be a Montor, but the entire town shuns her now that she lives with her drunken, one-eyed grandfather at what locals refer to as the “White Trash Zoo,” – a wild animal attraction featuring a zebra, a chimpanzee, and a panther, among other things.

Felicity Turnado has it all – looks, money, and a secret that she’s kept hidden. She knows that one misstep could send her tumbling from the top of the social ladder, and she’s worked hard to make everyone forget that she was with the Montors the night they disappeared. Felicity has buried what she knows so deeply that she can’t even remember what it is… only that she can’t look at Tress without having a panic attack.

But she’ll have to.

Tress has a plan. A Halloween costume party at an abandoned house provides the ideal situation for Tress to pry the truth from Felicity – brick by brick – as she slowly seals her former best friend into a coal chute. With a drunken party above them, and a loose panther on the prowl, Tress will have her answers – or settle for revenge.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Rape implied
  • Seizures
  • Dubious consent, implied
  • Drug dealing
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Recreational drug use
  • Graphic illness, specifically flu breakout
  • Graphic emesis
  • Graphic physical injury
  • Blood and gore depiction
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of parents
  • Grief depiction
  • Kidnapping
  • Captivity
  • Death of a pet
  • Animal attack
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The Conductors by Nicole Glover

The Conductors by Nicole Glover

The Conductors by Nicole Glover book cover

As a conductor on the Underground Railroad, Hetty Rhodes helped usher dozens of people north with her wits and magic. Now that the Civil War is over, Hetty and her husband Benjy have settled in Philadelphia, solving murders and mysteries that the white authorities won’t touch. When they find one of their friends slain in an alley, Hetty and Benjy bury the body and set off to find answers. But the secrets and intricate lies of the elites of Black Philadelphia only serve to dredge up more questions. To solve this mystery, they will have to face ugly truths all around them, including the ones about each other.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Slavery & human trafficking
  • Racism & colourism
  • Domestic abuse & violence
  • Infertility, miscarriage & mentions of pregnancy
  • Physical injury, including burns & scars
  • Blood and gore depiction
  • Death of a mother & father, friend, husband, sister & son
  • Disappearance of a sister
  • Torture
  • Knife violence
  • Fire
  • Kidnapping
  • Incarceration & captivity mentioned
  • Hanging/lynching (implied)