Tag Archives: Military Service & Deployment

This page lists books that contain trigger warnings for the depiction of military service, enlistment and deployment.

Faebound by Saara El-Arifi

Yeeran is a warrior in the elven army and has known nothing but violence her whole life. Her sister, Lettle, is trying to make a living as a diviner, seeking prophecies of a better future. When a fatal mistake leads to Yeeran’s exile from the Elven lands, they are both forced into the terrifying wilderness beyond their borders. There they encounter the impossible: the fae court. The fae haven’t been seen for a millennium. But now Yeeran and Lettle are thrust into their seductive world – torn between their loyalty to each other, their elven homeland, and their hearts…

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Human trafficking & slavery
  • Hospitalisation mentioned
  • Death of a parent, recounted & discussed
  • Torture
  • War themes including colonialism & child soldiers
  • Graphic animal death

Where Butterflies Wander by Suzanne Redfearn

After a tragic accident claims the life of one of her children, Marie Egide is desperate to carve out a fresh start for her family. With her husband and their three surviving children, Marie travels to New Hampshire, where she plans to sell a family estate and then, just maybe, they’ll be able to heal from their grief. Marie’s plans are thwarted when she realizes a war veteran known by locals as “the river witch” is living in a cabin on the property, which she claims was a gift from Marie’s grandfather. If Davina refuses to move on, Marie won’t be able to either. The two women… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a daughter
  • Injury & scarring obtained during military deployment in Afghanistan
  • Animal injury (dog)

Sula by Toni Morrison

Sula and Nel are two young black girls: clever and poor. They grow up together sharing their secrets, dreams and happiness. Then Sula breaks free from their small-town community in the uplands of Ohio to roam the cities of America. When she returns ten years later much has changed. Including Nel, who now has a husband and three children. The friendship between the two women becomes strained and the whole town grows wary as Sula continues in her wayward, vagabond and uncompromising ways.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racial slurs (n slur)
  • Infidelity mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse mentioned
  • Smoking mentioned
  • Death of a mother from suicide by fire (self-immolation)
  • Death of a man from being set on fire by his mother
  • Death of a child from an accidental drowning including further mentions of people drowning during a tunnel collapse
  • Physical assault of children mentioned
  • Battle scene recounted with mentions of the bloody death of a solider from gun violence

Underwater by Marisa Reichardt

Morgan didn’t mean to do anything wrong that day. Actually, she meant to do something right. But her kind act inadvertently played a role in a deadly tragedy. In order to move on, Morgan must learn to forgive—first someone who did something that might be unforgivable, and then herself. But Morgan can’t move on. She can’t even move beyond the front door of the apartment she shares with her mother and little brother. Morgan feels like she’s underwater, unable to surface. Unable to see her friends. Unable to go to school. When it seems Morgan can’t hold… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Agoraphobia & anxiety
  • Parent with Military-Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • School shooting & related trauma

Self-Made Boys: A Great Gatsby Remix by Anna-Marie McLemore

New York City, 1922. Nicolás Caraveo, a 17-year-old transgender boy from Minnesota, has no interest in the city’s glamor. Going to New York is all about establishing himself as a young professional, which could set up his future—and his life as a man—and benefit his family. Nick rents a small house in West Egg from his 18-year-old cousin, Daisy Fabrega, who lives in fashionable East Egg near her wealthy fiancé, Tom—and Nick is shocked to find that his cousin now goes by Daisy Fay, has erased all signs of her Latina heritage, and now passes seamlessly as white. Nick’s neighbour in West Egg is a mysterious young man… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical racism & colourism
  • Period-typical transphobia & homophobia
  • Period-typical sexism
  • Coming out themes
  • Cheating mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption & gambling
  • Emesis
  • Gun violence
  • Boating accident
  • Mentions of soldier’s military experiences in WW2

What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher

After kan terrifying ordeal at the Usher manor, Alex Easton feels as if ka just survived another war. All ka crave is rest, routine, and sunshine, but instead, as a favour to Angus and Miss Potter, they find kanself heading to kan family hunting lodge, deep in the cold, damp forests of their home country, Gallacia. In theory, one can find relaxation in even the coldest and dampest of Gallacian autumns, but when Easton arrives, ka find the caretaker dead, the lodge in disarray, and the grounds troubled by a strange, uncanny silence. The villagers whisper that a breath-stealing monster from folklore has taken up residence in Eastonh… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Military-Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) including flashbacks, nightmares, and panic attacks
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Physical illness and injury including chronic shoulder injury and pneumonia
  • Depiction of a dead body
  • Graphic body horror (theme)
  • Military enlistment during wartime discussed
  • Animal hunting mentioned

Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins

For David Goggins, childhood was a nightmare — poverty, prejudice, and physical abuse colored his days and haunted his nights. But through self-discipline, mental toughness, and hard work, Goggins transformed himself from a depressed, overweight young man with no future into a U.S. Armed Forces icon and one of the world’s top endurance athletes. The only man in history to complete elite training as a Navy SEAL, Army Ranger, and Air Force Tactical Air Controller, he went on to set records in numerous endurance events, inspiring Outside magazine to name him “The Fittest (Real) Man in America.”

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Child abuse
  • Alcoholism
  • Military enlistment & deployment (theme)

Spare by Prince Harry and J.R. Moehringer

It was one of the most searing images of the twentieth century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother’s coffin as the world watched in sorrow—and horror. As Princess Diana was laid to rest, billions wondered what Prince William and Prince Harry must be thinking and feeling—and how their lives would play out from that point on. For Harry, this is that story at last. Before losing his mother, twelve-year-old Prince Harry was known as the carefree one, the happy-go-lucky Spare to the more serious Heir. Grief changed everything. He struggled at school, struggled with anger, with loneliness—and, because he blamed the press for his mother’s death, he struggled… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Parental divorce & infidelity
  • Familial estrangement
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Agoraphobia
  • Suicidal ideation mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drug use (cigarettes, psychedelics, cocaine, marijuana)
  • Pregnancy, childbirth & miscarriage
  • Weight loss & gain mentioned
  • Physical injury and illness (frostbite, trench foot)
  • Death of a mother in a car accident
  • Death of an ex-partner from suicide
  • Death of a friend in a car accident and avalanche
  • Death of grandparents and great-grandmother mentioned
  • Stalking and harassment by the paparazzi and news organisations
  • Military service and deployment
  • Animal death including hunting and butchering
  • Injury of a pet dog

*Context : Mentions of intimate photos released without consent; Prince Harry’s uncle being accused of paedophilia and sexual violence.

A Duke Worth Fighting For by Christina Britton

To protect the dukedom from an incompetent and greedy cousin, Daniel Hayle, Duke of Carlisle, has promised to find a bride in London this season. But the idea of facing ballrooms and card parties is as intimidating as any battlefield in France, including the fight at Waterloo that left him terribly scarred. Perhaps a month on the Isle of Synne can provide him with the practice necessary to find a wife who can tolerate him enough to give him an heir. Margery Kitteridge has been mourning her husband for four years, and while she’s not ready to consider marriage again, she does miss intimacy with a partner. When Daniel… Read more,

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Injury & scars sustained during military service at Waterloo
  • Death of a husband during battle

Hopeless by Elsie Silver

Beau Eaton is the town prince, a handsome military hero with a tortured past. I’m the outcast bartender, a shy girl from the wrong side of the tracks. He’s thirty-five and all man, and I’m twenty-two and all… virgin. He’s also my fiancé. Correction: my fake fiancé. We start out as a bet. He doesn’t believe that anyone holds my last name against me. So he offers me his to prove a point. It’s win-win. He gets a break from his concerned family’s prying, and I get a chance to shed my family’s reputation while I save up to ditch this small town. He says all I have to do is wear his ring, follow his lead, and pretend I can’t keep my hands off of him… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Alcoholism discussed
  • Skin grafts for burns
  • Military service recounted