Title: Her Majesty’s Royal Coven

Author: Juno Dawson

Publisher: Penguin 2022

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 448

Rating: 5/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Fall TBR - Buddy Read Discussion

If you look hard enough at old photographs, we’re there in the background: healers in the trenches; Suffragettes; Bletchley Park oracles; land girls and resistance fighters. Why is it we help in times of crisis? We have a gift. We are stronger than Mundanes, plain and simple.

At the dawn of their adolescence, on the eve of the summer solstice, four young girls--Helena, Leonie, Niamh and Elle--took the oath to join Her Majesty's Royal Coven, established by Queen Elizabeth I as a covert government department. Now, decades later, the witch community is still reeling from a civil war and Helena is the reigning High Priestess of the organization. Yet Helena is the only one of her friend group still enmeshed in the stale bureaucracy of HMRC. Elle is trying to pretend she's a normal housewife, and Niamh has become a country vet, using her powers to heal sick animals. In what Helena perceives as the deepest betrayal, Leonie has defected to start her own more inclusive and intersectional coven, Diaspora. And now Helena has a bigger problem. A young warlock of extraordinary capabilities has been captured by authorities and seems to threaten the very existence of HMRC. With conflicting beliefs over the best course of action, the four friends must decide where their loyalties lie: with preserving tradition, or doing what is right.

Oh goodness! We picked this book hoping for a accessible and lighter read after some heavy choices. It was a much easier read, but one that was loaded with a lot of interesting questions and topics. Right away I picked up on the dichotomy between HMRC and Diaspora. We get some great conversations about race and privilege that harken back to many criticism of Third Wave Feminism. I’m looking forward to discussing the topic deeper during our discussion. We also get some great pieces about identity in general. I loved Niamh and Leonie so much as they try to navigate the intersections of their past and their present. I loved seeing how these two women were still supportive of all their coven sisters even when there were disagreements. I was rooting for both of those women to really come into their own throughout this story. The story itself becomes super fast-paced in the last 1/3 of the novel racing to a final confrontation. I did not quite see the ending playing out like it did, but was really enjoying the story. This volume leaves off on a very big cliffhanger, so beware. I will most definitely be picking up the next one once it’s released.

Her Majesty’s Royal Coven

• #1 Her Majesty’s Royal Coven

• #2 The Shadow Cabinet

• #3 untitled

Next up on the TBR pile: