Tag Archives: War Themes & Military Violence

This page lists books that contain trigger warnings for the depiction of war themes & military violence, including political coups, battle scenes, and other related topics.

See also Genocide, Rebellion, revolution & mutiny, Military service & deployment, Conscription, Chemical gassing & warfare, and Police brutality & violence.

Heart of the Sun Warrior by Sue Lynn Tan

After her perilous quest to free her mother, Xingyin thrives once more in the tranquility of her home. But her fragile peace is threatened by the discovery of a strange magic on the moon and the unsettling changes in the Celestial Kingdom as the emperor tightens his grip on power. While Xingyin is determined to keep clear of the rising danger, the discovery of a shocking truth spurs her into a treacherous confrontation. Forced to flee her home once more, Xingyin and her companions venture to unexplored lands of the Immortal Realm, encountering legendary creatures and shrewd monarchs, beloved friends and… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Death of a child
  • Fire
  • War themes & battle scenes

The Women by Kristin Hannah

The missing. The forgotten. The brave… The women. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie” McGrath hears these unexpected words, it is a revelation. Raised on idyllic Coronado Island and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing, being a good girl. But in 1965 the world is changing, and she suddenly imagines a different choice for her life. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she impulsively joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path. As green and inexperienced as the… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexism
  • Infidelity
  • Attempted suicide
  • Miscarriage
  • Psychiatric hospitalisation
  • Graphic blood, gore & injury depiction
  • Medical procedures
  • Death of a brother
  • Gun violence
  • Explosions & bombings
  • Military violence & Vietnam War (theme) including mentions of chemical gassing

Foul Heart Huntsman by Chloe Gong

Winter is drawing thick in 1932 Shanghai, as is the ever-nearing threat of a Japanese invasion. Rosalind Lang has suffered the worst possible fate for a national spy: she’s been exposed. With the media storm camped outside her apartment for the infamous Lady Fortune, she’s barely left her bedroom in weeks, plotting her next course of action after Orion was taken and his memories of Rosalind wiped. Though their marriage might have been a sham, his absence hurts her more than any physical wound. She won’t rest until she gets him back. But with her identity in the open, the task is near impossible. Th only way to leave the… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Human medical experimentation
  • Murder & mass murder
  • Torture
  • Gun violence
  • Loss of autonomy (mind control)

The Echo of Old Books by Barbara Davis

Rare-book dealer Ashlyn Greer’s affinity for books extends beyond the intoxicating scent of old paper, ink, and leather. She can feel the echoes of the books’ previous owners—an emotional fingerprint only she can read. When Ashlyn discovers a pair of beautifully bound volumes that appear to have never been published, her gift quickly becomes an obsession. Not only is each inscribed with a startling incrimination, but the authors, Hemi and Belle, tell conflicting sides of a tragic romance… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Antisemitism
  • World War Two

Light Bringer by Pierce Brown

“The measure of a man is not the fear he sows in his enemies. It is the hope he gives his friends.”—Virginia au Augustus

The Reaper is a legend, more myth than man: the savior of worlds, the leader of the Rising, the breaker of chains.

But the Reaper is also Darrow, born of the red soil of Mars: a husband, a father, a friend… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Graphic blood & gore depiction
  • War themes & battle scenes

In the Likely Event by Rebecca Yarros

When Izzy Astor gets on a plane to go home, she isn’t expecting much. It’s the usual holiday travel experience: busy, crowded, stressful.

Then she spots her seatmate, who is anything but ordinary. Nate Phelan sports dark hair, blue eyes, and a deliciously rugged charm that Izzy can’t resist. Their connection is undeniable. Izzy never believed in destiny before, but she does now.

Just ninety seconds after takeoff, their plane goes down in the Missouri River… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Plane crash
  • War themes

The Keeper of Hidden Books by Madeline Martin

All her life, Zofia has found comfort in two things during times of hardship: books and her best friend, Janina. But no one could have imagined the horrors of the Nazi occupation in Warsaw. As the bombs rain down and Hitler’s forces loot and destroy the city, Zofia finds that now books are also in need of saving.

With the death count rising and persecution intensifying, Zofia jumps to action to save her friend and salvage whatever books she can from the wreckage, hiding them away, and even starting a clandestine book club… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Antisemitism & Nazism
  • World War Two (theme)

The Wind Knows My Name by Isabel Allende

This powerful and moving novel from the New York Times bestselling author of A Long Petal of the Sea weaves together past and present, tracing the ripple effects of war and immigration on one child in Europe in 1938 and another in the United States in 2019.

Vienna, 1938. Samuel Adler was six years old when his father disappeared during Kristallnacht—the night their family lost everything. Samuel’s mother secured a spot for him on the last Kindertransport train out of Nazi-occupied Austria to the United Kingdom, which he boarded alone, carrying nothing but a change of clothes and his violin… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Antisemitism
  • Rape mentioned
  • Sexual assault of a child
  • Domestic violence mentioned
  • Alcoholism mentioned
  • Suicide
  • Torture mentioned
  • War themes including the depiction of a pogrom & Kristallnacht

What Once Was Mine by Liz Braswell

Desperate to save the life of their queen and her unborn child, the good people of Corona search for the all-healing Sundrop flower to cure her—but mistakenly acquire the shimmering Moondrop flower instead. Nonetheless it heals the queen, and she delivers a healthy baby girl with hair as silver and gray as the moon. With it comes dangerous magical powers: the power to hurt, not heal. For her safety and the safety of the kingdom, Rapunzel is locked in a tower and put under the care of powerful goodwife, Mother Gothel… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infertility
  • Cancer

Strike the Zither by Joan He

The year is 414 of the Xin Dynasty, and chaos abounds. A puppet empress is on the throne. The realm has fractured into three factions and three warlordesses hoping to claim the continent for themselves.

But Zephyr knows it’s no contest.

Orphaned at a young age, Zephyr took control of her fate by becoming the best strategist of the land and serving under Xin Ren, a warlordess whose loyalty to the empress is double-edged—while Ren’s honor draws Zephyr to her cause, it also jeopardizes… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Blood depiction
  • Eye horror
  • Emesis
  • Starvation & famine
  • Death of parents, off-page
  • War themes
  • Animal death