The small town of Hebden Bridge is known for two things: The first, it’s bridge; the second, it’s women. Ten years ago, Elle, Niamh, Helena, and Leonie fought and won against the warlock, Dabney Hale, and his group of witches and warlocks who sought to both reveal magic to the world … and to conquer it. They have had ten years of peace, of drifting apart. But now the world needs them to come together again in order to kill the Sullied Child, a child of extraordinary power who will call forth the Leviathan, one of the three great demons, and unleash hell upon the world.

Elle is a nurse who dotes on her children and loves her husband. She is the last of the Device witches — a family as ancient as Her Majesty’s Royal Coven (HMRC) — or so she thought. Her daughter, Holly, is showing signs of power and Elle has only one person to turn to: Niamh. Niamh lost her fiance in the fight against Hale, but more than that, she lost her sister who chose to side with evil and allow a demon to possess her. Now, she works as a vet in Hebden Bridge, trying not to fall for the local delivery man while the two of them bond over horror movies.

Helena rose to power after the battle and now heads HMRC, ruling with an iron fist. When her oracles find the Sullied Child, she can think of only one of her sisters to bring in for help. Niamh, who — despite her gentle and quiet demeanor — is an adept whose power may well rival Helena’s. And then there’s Leonie, the last of them, the perpetual outcast. Black and lesbian, she never fit in to the cookie-cutter coven that told her how to use her power, how to be a witch, how to embrace magic the ‘proper’ way. Having formed her own coven, Diaspora — made of non-white witches and warlocks, as well as magic practitioners of many paths — she has found her own peace.

When Niamh finds out a truth about the Sullied Child, called Theo, she reaches out to Leonie for help … and ends up making a choice that will change the world.

This book is more about womanhood, sisterhood, and self-identity than it is about romance, magic, or drama — though it has all of that in spades. The romance for Niamh is a sweet song playing in the background while Niamh seeks to connect with Theo, who, for all their power, is traumatized, terrified, and helpless. Many fantasy books lightly coat sensitive and heavy topics in elven robes, vampiric coffins, or magical towers — like cheese over vegetables — to make their point subtle and gentle. This book, on the other hand, disdains cheese. It talks openly about racism, how Leonie, as the only black girl in her childhood friend group, had to behave a certain way, talk a certain way, and learn magic a certain way in order to be accepted. It talks about colonialism and how the British covens ‘rescued’ indigenous peoples from their barbaric and uneducated beliefs, teaching them to perform magic in the ‘right’ way. It also talks about gender identity, how HMRC divides magic and positions behind a strict gender binary, choosing not to acknowledge transgender or LGBTQIA+ individuals.

And the narrator of much of these political commentaries is Leonie who, unfortunately, sometimes becomes more a professor than a person. Leonie is very aware of her privilege, being able to afford to start her own coven and having the power to rule it, but there’s almost no sense of her coven beyond their LGBTQIA+ status and that they do not accept white practitioners. Less time is spent on Leonie and her girlfriend than on Niamh and her movie dates with her delivery man, and much of the time other characters spend talking about or with Leonie only serve to enhance her otherness and outsider status, rather than on how she fits together with the other three women. I do wish Leonie had been given more screen time, and that I had been given more time to get to know her as a character, especially in the scenes where all four women came together in a show of raw power where Leonie felt, at times, more like an observer than a powerful witch, especially compared to Niamh and Helena.

Elle is a cheerful, willfully blind healer who wants to keep the peace. She doesn’t like fighting, doesn’t like the ugly side of reality, and hides her true appearance by wearing a glamour around her husband. If it weren’t for her daughter suddenly showing powers, Elle would have happily kept going as she was, half living in the romanticized past and the cheerfully pastoral present. But when push comes to shove, Elle is more than willing to stand her ground. While she will prevaricate between this side or that, she has her own line in the sand, and when those she loves are put in danger, she will fight back. And how she chose to fight, too, was an interesting choice, giving back to someone the harm they had caused in equal measure; Elle is not vengeful, she is exactingly fair.

Niamh is powerful, has always known she was powerful, and has never doubted her ability to do anything. Even when facing down her twin sister ten years ago, she moved with confidence and surety. It isn’t until Theo that she begins to feel out of her depth when the young warlock — who will not or cannot speak, who has lived a life of horrific pain — ends up being a young witch. Theo is transgender, and for once Niamh is out of her depth. How does she help and support Theo? How does she defend Theo from Helena and HRMC? Because it’s not a choice, has never been a choice, to give Theo back. Theo is her chance to do it again, to save someone … as she couldn’t save her sister. Helping Theo doesn’t assuage the guilt, but it gives her a chance when she didn’t think she’d ever have another one.

And then there’s Helena. Vain, insecure, anxious, and high strung, she’s been negged by her mother most of her life. Even her position as head of the coven isn’t enough; her mother will still find ways to pick at her. At her appearance, her weight, her choices as a witch, as a mother… day in and day out. Helena craves power, craves respect and acknowledgement. Niamh, from a poorer house, should have looked up to Helena, but Niamh is more powerful. Elle is more lovely and more loved. Leonie not only left, she made her own coven, as if HMRC wasn’t enough, as if Helena wasn’t enough. And now the three of them are trying to say that Theo — the Sullied Child, prophesied to bring about the monster known as Leviathan — is a girl. Helena is a cold, calculating TERF who has decided opinions and will make them known.

The author has a lot to say in this book about gender, identity, history, and what it is to be a woman. Unfortunately, in my opinion, the writing and character building sometimes suffered because of the message. The pacing was uneven in parts, where the focus would go from an insightful moment on love and acceptance to a lengthy talk about the patriarchy and then to some magic and sisterhood.

And, speaking of sisterhood, there is a choice in here — made by the characters — that rubbed me the wrong way. Elle’s husband is cheating on her, and her friends know. (Hell, in a small town like Hebden Bridge, it’s very likely most of the town knows.) And both Leonie and Niamh have made the choice to not say anything because Elle’s happier not knowing. When her daughter finds out and wants to tell her mom, Niamh erases her memory because … isn’t it mean to Elle to let her know her husband is cheating on her? Because, thanks to the guilt, he’s nice to her when he gets home? Taking away Holly’s agency by simply taking away her memory — without asking for consent — and taking Elle’s ability to make a decision about her own life, feels a little discordant with the themes of the rest of the book. That is, however, simply my opinion on the character’s actions.

However, all that said, the story is interesting. The approach to magic, to covens, and Leonie’s Diaspora — with it’s teachings brought in from all over the world, from so many cultures — is one I very much enjoyed. It’s nice to see witchcraft viewed through a larger and more inclusive lens, and I do think this book is worth the read for what it is.

I loved this book and I already can't wait until the sequel.
I'm a sucker for a story about witches that live in the world of today. I loved Juno Dawson's writing in where she compared witch hunts to how people act in society today.

An excellent read for those who love fantasy!

This was an incredibly relevant story with the author bringing in the transgender aspect to this book. I felt like this was a wonderful revelation to the characters and wasn't just a side note, but a driving factor in the story. I applaud the author for being brave enough to address this issue.

I've said it time and time again that multiple points of view tend to confuse me and this did happen a few times during my read, but I don't think this was a huge turn off and probably just my ability to zone out sometimes while reading. Darn autistic brain.

What a perfect read. A solid 4 stars.

I… don’t think I liked this book. It is a little hard to untangle, because the book is saying things that I agree with, but it is saying them poorly. It took a long time to get into the book and I don’t think characterization was done particularly well - the characters all felt surface level, and Helena was baffling. Leonie was criminally underused.

HER MAJESTY’S ROYAL COVEN
By Juno Dawson

An epic fantasy trilogy book one

This is the story of four childhood friends - witches Helena, Leonie, Niamh and Elle who have taken an oath and are part of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth I
Royal Coven (HMRC) that work their craft in times of crisis always just beneath the shadows of our lives, in a fantasy English world.

Now many years later, Helena - the current reigning high priestess of the HMRC and the only one left to manage the Royal Coven, while her other friends have either moved on trying to live a normal life or defected to start their own coven of BIPOC witches . Some issues arise that will bring the coven back together again.

Juno Dawson did a great job setting up this trilogy and intricately weaving a world of feminist values, with a diverse cast, and a thrilling and irresistible group of women, magic and lure.

I cannot wait to read the rest of the series.

I think this will appeal to all the ex-Harry Potter fans out there who have (justified) reason to be angry with JK Rowling. For me, a person who has still yet to read more than one Harry Potter book, I can only recognize it for what it is on its face: a contemporary fantasy about witches that are gathered, for the most part, into one coven and put into service for Her Majesty the Queen of England. The magic is not so much witchy as it is fantastical and X-Men-ish. The witches teleport and read minds, etc. They also do this in secret--the world of the mundanes (ie muggles) don't know what's going on underneath their noses, especially that war that is heavily alluded to at the beginning of the book. When a boy witch is found with staggering powers (rare for a boy witch) the coven takes him under their suspicious wing to investigate, lest he be a vessel for a demon that's trying to end the world.

I am sure something interesting was up with all of this, but I am unfortunately in that camp that was bored by the first half. I nearly made it to about 40%, but I couldn't focus on the story and the characters never jumped off the page for me. None of it felt cohesive and the writing felt a little too immature. So while I fully see this as a kind of rebuttal to JK Rowling, I am just not the reader for this book.

Her Majesty's Royal Coven is the first novel in a series by the same name, written by June Dawson. It's perfect for readers that enjoyed A Discovery of Witches.

Helena, Leonie, Niamh, and Elle were all proud to sign up for Her Majesty's Royal Coven, which dates back to the time of Queen Elizabeth I. Yet a civil war quickly changed the landscape of their job and perhaps their future.

Helena is now the High Priestess and the only one of the four still actively involved in the Coven. Meanwhile, Ellen has moved on to a new life, where she tries to pretend there's no magic in her blood. Leonie defected to a different (more inclusive) coven, and Niamh became a vet.

Ohhh! If you love politics mixed into your magical fantasies, I got the book for you. Her Majesty's Royal Coven is the perfect blend of the two while tackling many other surprising subjects.

It made for a delightfully dense read, with lots of twists and intrigues. This is no light fantasy novel; it's a book that will make you think and feel. I adore that; I cannot wait to see where the rest of this series leads.

I also love how different all four characters wound up being. This gave us several viewpoints on the world. We saw magic from several lenses, which helped showcase the corruption that can stem from power. It was very well done.

Four girls in their youth take an oath to join Her Majesty’s Royal Coven - a coven of witches who have been serving the Queens of England since the time of Anne Boleyn. Fast forward to present day and those young girls are grown - some still in the service of the Queen, others in different covens and yet others who have drifted away from covens and witchcraft altogether. But there is a threat on the rise and these women must remember what they were to each other in their youth and work together to save their future.

This is the first in what is to be a trilogy - however, there is a significant amount of back story that was hard to follow - making me question if it was actually the first book! Dawson has done an impeccable job of addressing many of the hot and loaded topics of the day: gender, LGBTQ+, power, feminism, etc. A fun and enlightening read - very much looking forward to the next one!

I thought this book sounded so cool! And it is: it has social issues, gender issues, witchy issues...but also, it has major slog issues. I had to slog through about 35% of the book until I looked at the reviews. Apparently the first half of the book is so dull, but if you make it to the back half, things heat up! But also, they're kind of dull still.

I'm in the dull category. I fast forwarded through the book and skimmed, touched on a couple of the main parts, but I thought the book was kind of all over the place. I appreciate the author writing a fantasy, witchy, queer book, but I just couldn't bring myself to keep reading it past about 45%. I have so many other books I'd rather be reading, and I don't have time to "make" myself read a book.

I think if this is your favorite genre, if you are looking for a dark, queer, fantasy, it'd be worth working your way through it. It just wasn't worth it to me, sadly.

This book was amazing. I coudn't put it down. It was magical. Higly recommended! The characters, the plots, the writting: wonderful and perfect.

If this is not a nice letter of fuck off to J.K.Rowling I don't know what is.

One of the best contemporary books about witches I have ever read. The characters are all well portrayed, each with her own life and secrets dealing with small important issues. Family, friendship, sisterhood, womanhood.

The plot is strong and very gripping, Theo's story is compelling and Helena was a perfect villain, a woman who represents the past unable to evolve, her transphobic speeches will make your skin crawl mainly because those are things that are thought and said by so many Terfs out there. Turning her into the villain of the story was a nice touch.

I loved all those pop 90s culture references and the cliffhanger was bitter but expected, I suspect there will be some major comebacks in the next one and I look forward to reading it.

Her Majesty's Royal Coven is a story about systems and freedom. About ingrained systems that are held up, institutions, over time and which - in some ways - resist change. This idea that they are exclusionary, not listening or acknowledging voices, like marginalized ones. It's about these systems of power and also to celebrate voices and forces of change. Of people who are able to see when to speak out, and those who have made spaces of their own. It's a multiple POV story surrounding this core of friends who have drifted apart.

I enjoyed watching the character's lives unfold, specifically as they began to intersect more and it was clear they were keeping things from each other. But I do feel like some perspectives took more of the center stage. Maybe that's because of the ending and how it's set up for this series, but I felt like some of my favorite characters didn't get as much time as I would have liked. Even more than that, one of the characters is incredibly transphobic.

I am not trans and so I cannot speak to these comments, but I can say that it was incredibly difficult to read. I realize that these sentiments are those shared by some people within our society - this TERF sentiment that pervades certain spaces - but it just felt like in a story which is supposed to feature a trans minor at the heart of it, that it was difficult to read. The story of her search for recognition and specifically as a girl is so central to the plot of the story and so this POV felt even more hostile.

Honestly, I really did not enjoy this at all but the I think the political message behind the novel and the direct fuck you to TERF.K. Rowling was interesting enough to warrant it more than a 1 star. Unfortunately though, I hated the writing in this and I just could not get into this book at all. I had a feeling from the first couple of pages that this would not be the book for me, but I wanted to push through because the premise sounded so interesting. And it was - but Dawson has a writing style that I really just could not jive with. Also, and I am sure this was intentional, the novel was so campy and cliche. The amount of millennial references and nodes to Spice Girls.... I was just rolling my eyes. I did absolutely adore the growth of Theo in the novel and how she becomes her own person. She was probably the only character I liked and rooted for. Everyone else was hella boring. I am really sad that I didn't love this book because, like I said, Theo's journey with her identity and the conversation the book has about trans community's struggles. Hopefully, I can read more Juno Dawson in the future.

Her Majesty's Royal Coven is urban fantasy that makes a statement. Juno Dawson tackles some big issues here - some important issues - and this book is certainly timely, considering some of the opposite views that have been publicized recently. With that, we spend some time in a certain character's head, and there were times when I had to just set the book aside and walk away to clear my head. I guess you could say that particular point of view left a bad taste in my mouth. I'm trying to be vague here to avoid spoilers, so I'll just say that I enjoyed the other points of view, the time inside the heads of more fair-minded characters, but the one was almost too much for me. Don't let that deter you, though, because the message here is an important one, and I'd say the book is definitely worth the read.

This book!! I'm so glad this book was written. It is a fresh and new take on the contemporary witch story and the magic realism that creates the world in this book is 10/10. I loved the characters and the magical community and witch lore that this book sets up and I feel like I really understood the community. The book took a bit of an unexepected turn with who the "villian" turns out to be and the plot twist that happened at the end shocked and intrigued me more than an ending to a book in YEARS. I will definitely be reading the next book.
Overall, I only give this book 3.5 stars because it was slow for a lot of the middle and the amount of british slang words I had to look up became very bothersome. But the story, worldbuilding, and characters were great and I can't wait to read the rest of this series.

This book ends in the tricksiest, most gut-wrenching cliffhanger. I need a sequel POST HASTE. I loved the world of this book, the politics, the intrigue, the interpersonal dramas, all of the macro and micro conflicts. It’s a big queer book for June and I am delighted to have read it during Pride.

I enjoyed this book very much. The core of the story is a woman and lesbian-affirming coven of powerful witches is confronted with the question of whether a trans woman suits or destroys their centuries-old tradition. (There's also a healthy amount of prophecy and potential apocalypse) Two factions battle to determine the fate of a powerful trans girl. The best thing about this book is the relationships-- particularly between the protagonist and the witchling, which gave me Arthur and Lucy vibes (House in the Cerulean Sea) and will bring me back to this book.

What did I just read?!

This book was quite the ride and I could not get enough! This was a multiple perspective story following a group of friends and the aftermath of a great magical war. For the most part I enjoyed reading from each of the character's very different perspectives but don't even get me started on Helen. There are just some characters that you can't help but hate. She wasn't even a lovable villain or morally gray character. Technically one could argue that she wasn't even the villain in the book but she sure made it very hard to not hate her. Her story kept me reading though because I couldn't even believe the hate that was coming out of her mouth. I had to know what she was going to get up to next and I kept hoping that someone would just punch her. I enjoyed the magic that was present throughout the book as well. I have read many a book were the witches and/or wizards relied on spells to do magic but this was not the case here. The characters in this book use elemental magic which is something I am not too familiar with but I look forward to reading more books with this type of magic system because I found it fascinating.

This was a great book to read during pride month and I am so glad that I picked it up. I could not read it fast enough and after that cliff hanger I need book 2 ASAP!!! I feel like I will still be thinking about this book for days to come.

A big thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for gifting me a digital copy of this book.

I liked this book a lot, it was interesting and creatively plotted. There exists a group of witches called the HMRC, Her Majesty’s Royal Coven. The group was started by Queen Elizabeth 1 and was off and on until Queen Victoria brought it back. It’s a covert department of the British government. As young girls, 4 friends took the oath together.

A recent civil war has left the country’s witches and warlocks rebuilding their covens. Helena is in charge of the HMRC. When an extraordinary young boy is discovered who possesses extremely strong powers and might be the fulfillment of a prophecy, she sends him to her old friend Niamh to determine if he’s an existential threat to the HMRC.

What Niamh discovers puts her at odds with the HMRC, her friend Helena, and others who fear both the prophecy and the boy. Niamh and her childhood friends Leonie and Elle must literally battle witches and warlocks.

Can the three friends find common ground through their coven bonds? Does an existential threat really exist? You’ll have to read the book to find out! This is the first book in a series, and I’m excited to read the next book! 4 stars.

Synopsis

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 now 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.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed as in this review are completely my own.

The start was a bit of a confusing whirlwind - by starting with a snippet of childhood and a bunch of names bandied about with very little context, I was left wrong-footed at the start - but once we made it to present day and settled in with our grown-up characters all living their own lives, it was much easier to follow. It was also very slow. There's little to no major plot movement for about half the book as we focus instead on the complicated relationships between our main cast.

And then Helena is revealed to be a TERF and it was all downhill from there. Props to Dawson for really digging in and putting forth every single transphobic argument in the TERF lexicon and summarily tearing it down. But when the matriarch of a coven of (female) witches decides that summoning a literal demon is preferable to letting a trans girl be a witch instead of a warlock, I had trouble reading it. Someone less sensitive to those particular arguments may be much more appreciative of this story than me.