Her Majesty's Royal Coven
A Novel
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4.3 • 30 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
“Superb and almost unbearably charming, Her Majesty’s Royal Coven… expertly launches an exciting new trilogy." —The New York Times Book Review
"Talk about a gut punch of a novel. …A provocative exploration of intersectional feminism, loyalty, gender and transphobia [that] invites readers into an intricately woven web of magic, friendship and power." —The Nerd Daily
A Discovery of Witches meets The Craft in this epic fantasy about a group of childhood friends who are also witches.
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This cleverly constructed contemporary fantasy, the adult debut from YA bestseller Dawson (This Book Is Gay), launches the HMRC series. Witches Niamh, Ciara, Helena, Leonie, and Elle have been friends since childhood. They swore their oath to the eponymous, long-standing coven—a secret mainstay of the British government—together and fought side-by-side during a brutal civil war. When, after years of peace, Theo, an impossibly powerful teenage warlock, is discovered in an orphanage, the portents foretell a new threat. As it becomes clear there's more to Theo than meets the eye, conflict over how to handle the situation erupts among the four friends. Helena's personal biases gradually overshadow her friendships, and she takes increasing risks to secure the safety of her coven. Though at first the story feels run-of-the-mill and seems to lack the emotional intensity that characterizes Dawson's work for teens, a gradually building layer of political commentary ultimately reveals a complex metaphor for the U.K.'s sociopolitical climate and mainstream transphobia. This added texture is carefully balanced with a fast-paced second half and some truly surprising twists, making this an exciting new direction for Dawson. Readers will be eager for the next installment.
