Book Review: “Her Majesty’s Royal Coven” by Juno Dawson
Her Majesty’s Royal Coven
Juno Dawson
Before I get into this, I want to suggest you seek out other reviews for Her Majesty’s Royal Coven, specifically reviews from Black and trans folks. Juno Dawson herself is trans, and it influences the book quite heavily. There is a Black woman POV character, and as always it’s important to read the voices of others when a book like this deals so heavily with identity. That said, there are also content warnings for the book, including a lot of deadnaming and misgendering. One of the POV characters is a flat out TERF, and at times it makes for uncomfortable reading. But this is really a very good book, and I’m going to tell you why.
Helena, Leonie, Niamh and Elle are witches, and at a young age they take an oath to join Her Majesty’s Royal Coven. As young women, the four girls find themselves on the front lines of a civil war among witches. Still reeling from the war, they go their separate ways – Helena becomes the High Priestess, Leonie starts her own inclusive and intersectional coven, Diaspora, Niamh is a country vet and Elle is pretending to be a normal housewife. But years later, and another threat is on the horizon, one that draws the women back briefly back together, but the questions over the threat drive them apart once more, including what link the teenage Theo has to the so-called ‘Leviathan’.
I have to admit, I was a bit uncertain about the book for the first section. But once Theo is introduced, the book really picks up. It’s a story of friendship, survival, gender, and letting go, and an excellent reflection of the lengths some people will go to to keep the status quo. It’s hard not to read it and feel it’s a rebuttal to Harry Potter. This is what that world could be, in a sense, while retaining elements of it and having the characters challenge the rigid, unending world in which Hogwarts lives. In this world, witches and warlocks are separated, with witches being more powerful than their male equivalents, and the HRMC feeling very much like the Ministry of Magic. Even the language used feels like it’s leaning towards the Wizarding World while skirting around it – mundane instead of muggles, for example. And with the comparisons, Dawson has created a world that will very much appeal to those who loved HP and Hogwarts but hate what the author has become.
There are very uncomfortable moments in this book, but uncomfortable in a way we allies have to sit with and acknowledge. The bitterness and anger exhibited by the witches who do not want a teenage trans girl joining the coven is very much taken from real life TERFs, and is underscored, too, in the way Leonie and her own coven are treated by the establishment. Things in this world are complicated and messy and each of the POV characters are dealing with their own trauma. Dawson invites us to understand the actions committed by bigoted characters, and outlines how they get this way, without ever excusing it, and it works so well. This is a really good book, that uses very real-world events to emphasise what the women here are facing.
HMRC is definitely worth reading, not just for the issues it tackles but because Dawson creates an intriguing, wonderful narrative in this world, that sweeps the reader away while forcing us to look at our own actions and thoughts, as well as others, and showing the power in tackling evil.
Review by Elle Turpitt
Twitter & Instagram: @elleturpitt
I received this ebook from HarperVoyage via NetGalley for review consideration.
