Her Majesty’s Royal Coven

A Book Review

Hello, friend,

Welcome to another waltz through my library. As you remember, I have been working through my special reading list for 2023. Her Majesty’s Royal Coven by Juno Dawson was book number three of 2023, but I wanted to tell you more in depth about it first.

Trigger Warnings: This book does deal with homophobe, transphobia, and racism. I will be discussing these topics after the big block quote section below. You have been warned and I am not responsible for how you feel after reading my review.

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.

Juno Dawson explores gender and the corrupting nature of power in a delightful and provocative story of magic and matriarchy, friendship and feminism. Dealing with all the aspects of contemporary womanhood, as well as being phenomenally powerful witches, Niamh, Helena, Leonie and Elle may have grown apart but they will always be bound by the sisterhood of the coven.

There are so many words I could use to describe what Dawson has created in this book. While a fictional book, this book calls to the duality of magic in both the male and the feminine. The story follows Helena, Leonie, Niamh and Elle as they move through their adult years.

A brief history for the world built within the book is that Her Majesty’s Royal Coven (HMRC) was founded by her majesty Queen Elizabeth Tudor, daughter of Anne Boleyn and Henry Tudor VIII. Anne in this book is confirmed as a witch with powers. While Elizabeth did not inherit any of her mother’s powers, she did recognize the importance of having the witches be loyal to her. Because of this history, the HMRC is very white supremacist feeling. It leads Leonie to breakaway and create Diaspora which is much more inclusive.

The oracles in the book had foretold of a powerful person that could potentially bring the whole apocalypse down on the world. The story followed Niamh, Helena, Leonie, and Elle as they struggle through the world that has followed after a war between a split faction of witches and warlocks and those that belong the HMRC and the warlock equivalent. You may think I’m throwing the warlocks to the dogs but we don’t learn much about how their half of the coven life works in this book. I do hope that Dawson may continue this line of books and we may learn more about the warlocks.

The story line jumps between each witch in the story telling, following their thought processes as they take us through their individual journeys. However, be warned that as I stated above this story tells of the transphobia, homophobia, and racism that plagues the HMRC and that Diaspora seeks to include in their membership. If you’re walking into this book, I highly recommend just being aware of this as you are going into this book. Because if you are ally you are going to be very irritated by how people are in this book.

But for me I thoroughly enjoy a book where I feel so angry at the characters and want to throw the book at the wall. This gives me the hallmark of a good book when you get attached as if they’re real people and you’re hearing them tell you the story real time.

For me, Dawson’s book is perfect for everyone to read and can be really eye opening. So I highly recommend it going on your TBR list as soon as possible.

Happy reading,