Bracing for Impact

A FICTIONAL NOVEL INSPIRED BY ACTUAL EVENTS

When infertility shatters Revena Miller’s dreams of motherhood, her husband leaves her for his pregnant girlfriend. Struggling to redefine her life, she answers an ad seeking female correctional officers for one of Canada’s most violent maximum-security prisons. What begins as a desperate attempt to reclaim her sense of purpose soon becomes a fight for survival.

“Welcome to the Jungle.”

With these four words, Revena is thrust into a world unlike anything she has ever known. As a rookie correctional officer in the late 1980s, she is constantly reminded that a maximum-security men’s prison is no place for a woman.

Senior officers dismiss her, and younger guards question her abilities. Inmates watch, waiting for the slightest weakness to exploit. Every interaction is a power struggle, and every decision has consequences.

Each shift pulls her deeper into the chaos—drug-fueled bikers, inmates teetering on the edge of madness, a young addict’s suicide attempt, a colleague’s death, and the endless smuggling schemes orchestrated by inmates and their families.

As tensions mount—between inmates and guards,management and the union, and rival factions—survival becomes as much a psychological battle as a physical one. Revena must navigate violence, manipulation, and moral dilemmas that challenge everything she thought she knew about strength, justice, and herself.

In a world where aggression is power and weakness is fatal, Rocky Crest offers no easy victories. To endure, she must sharpen her instincts, tear down the emotional barriers she’s built, and redefine what it truly means to be strong. But as the brutal realities of the job close in, Revena realizes that the greatest threat isn’t what’s behind the bars—it’s what the job does to those who guard them.

When faced with a life-or-death decision, she must ask herself: How far is she willing to go—and can she live with the cost?