Tag Archives: Imprisonment & Incarceration

This page lists books that contain trigger warnings for the depiction of imprisonment and incarceration (which is separated from Captivity‎ and confinement but may overlap).

See also Police brutality & violence, Racism, Organised crime, and Murder & attempted murder.

In Which Winnie Halifax Is Utterly Ruined by Alexandra Vasti

In 1811, Winifred Wallace told one tiny lie. To secure her future as an independent sheep farmer, she invented an estranged husband named Mr. Spencer Halifax and forged their marriage record. Ten years later, her deception catches up with her: in the form of the disturbingly real, distressingly attractive earl on her doorstep. Spencer Halifax wants to set a good example for his beloved hellion sisters. Ever since their father’s death, he’s tried to play the role of steady, sensible earl—and involving himself with a moderately felonious sheep farmer is decidedly not sensible. But Winnie’s unfettered passion and fierce self-reliance… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment recounted
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of parents recounted
  • Incarceration

The Boy I Love by William Hussey

At just 19, Stephen has already survived a year at the front. Now he is returning to the trenches to lead a platoon, despite his wounds. Broken-hearted from the loss of his first love, Stephen wonders what he’s fighting for. Then he meets Private Danny McCormick, a smart, talented young recruit. From their first meeting, there’s something undeniable between them, something forbidden by both society and the army. Determined to protect Danny, Stephen must face down the prejudices and ignorance of his superiors as well as the onslaught of German shells and sniper fire. As the summer of 1916 ticks down to one big push on the Somme, can Stephen and Danny stay together?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical homophobia including incarceration for being gay
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Death of a friend
  • Gun violence
  • Explosions
  • War themes

Last Twilight in Paris by Pam Jenoff

London, 1953. Louise is still adjusting to her postwar role as a housewife when she discovers a necklace in a box at a secondhand shop. The box is marked with the name of a department store in Paris, and she is certain she has seen the necklace before when she worked with the Red Cross in Nazi-occupied Europe —and that it holds the key to the mysterious death of her friend Franny during the war. Following the trail of clues to Paris, Louise seeks help from her former boss Ian, with whom she shares a romantic history. The necklace leads them to discover the dark history of Lévitan—a once-glamorous department store that… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Chronic illness (protagonist)
  • Imprisonment
  • World War Two (theme)

The Tapestry of Time by Kate Heartfield

The Tapestry of Time by Kate Heartfield

Love, heroism and the supernatural collide in the midst of war. There’s a tradition in the Sharp family that some possess the Second Sight. But is it superstition, or true psychic power? Kit Sharp is in Paris, where she is involved in a love affair with the stunning Evelyn Larsen, and working as an archivist, having inherited her historian father’s fascination with the Bayeux Tapestry. He believes that parts of the tapestry were made before 1066, and that it was a tool for prediction, not a simple record of events. The Nazis are also obsessed with the convinced that not… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Murder & torture
  • Imprisonment
  • The Holocaust & World War Two mentioned including Nazism

Alice Payne Rides by Kate Heartfield

Alice Payne Rides by Kate Heartfield

After abducting Arthur of Brittany from his own time in 1203, thereby creating the mystery that partly prompted the visit in the first place, Alice and her team discover that they have inadvertently brought the smallpox virus back to 1780 with them. Searching for a future vaccine, Prudence finds that the various factions in the future time war intend to use the crisis to their own advantage. Can the team prevent an international pandemic across time, and put history back on its tracks? At least until the next battle in the time war…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical misogyny & lesbophobia
  • Sexual harassment (unwanted touching)
  • Childbirth mentioned
  • Plague (smallpox)
  • Death of a sister
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Gun violence
  • Kidnapping & imprisonment
  • War themes & a battle scene

Killer Potential by Hannah Deitch

A scholarship kid with straight As and big dreams, Evie Gordon always thought she was special, that she’d be someone. But after graduating from an elite university, she finds herself drowning in debt and working as an SAT tutor for the super-rich of Los Angeles. Everything changes one Sunday, when she arrives for her weekly lesson at the Victors’ Beverly Hills estate and, in lieu of a bored teenager, finds the bloody remains of the parents strewn through their beautiful back garden, and a woman crying for help within a closet. As Evie works to free her, the two are spotted—and within… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Gun & knife violence
  • Imprisonment & captivity

Break to You by Neal Shusterman, Debra Young and Michelle Knowlden

Adriana knows that if she can manage to keep her head down for the next seven months, she might be able to get through her sentence in the Compass juvenile detention center. Thankfully, she’s allowed to keep her journal, where she writes down her most private thoughts when her feelings get too big. Until the day she opens her journal and discovers that her thoughts are no longer so private. Someone has read her writings—and has written back. A boy who lives on the other side of the gender-divided detention center. A boy who sparks a fire in her to write back… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Hospitalisation
  • Death of a parent
  • Poisoning
  • Incarceration (juvenile detention)
  • Bullying

The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami

Sara has just landed at LAX, returning home from a conference abroad, when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA’s algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming the person she loves most: her husband. For his safety, she must be kept under observation for twenty-one days. The agents transfer Sara to a retention center, where she is held with other dreamers, all of them women trying to prove their innocence from different crimes. With every deviation from the strict and ever-shifting… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Imprisonment
  • Wildfire
  • Bullying

Just My Luck by Lena Hendrix

You might think it’s reckless for a single mom to enter into a marriage of convenience with her boss… You would be correct. To make matters worse, Abel King is a grumpy local brewer with a criminal past. He also happens to be my boss and a total stick-in-the-mud. Every time I come to work with a smile and wave, I’m lucky if I can get a grunt in response. When I accidentally-on-purpose overhear that he’s having trouble securing a business loan due to his criminal record, I hatch a plan to help the both of us. The arrangement is perfect—a business transaction and nothing more. Like having a roommate… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment mentioned
  • Abusive relationship recounted
  • Death of a child in a car accident discussed
  • Incarceration recounted

Ankle Snatcher by Grady Hendrix

Obey the rules. It’s the only way to survive the night in a short story about what hides in the dark by the New York Times bestselling author of The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires. Marcus grew up believing his father killed his mother—then blamed it on the boogeyman under the bed. Always leave the lights on, his father warned, or the boogeyman will get you. Marcus still heeds the superstition, especially when he invites his new girlfriend over. Is Marcus haunted by a creature or has he just inherited his father’s murderous delusions? The night will tell.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Imprisonment