Reviews with content warning for Homophobia - Her Majesty's Royal Coven

I'm always up for a witchy read, and even more so if it's a queer one! In this respect, Her Majesty's Royal Coven completely met and surpassed my expectations. Honestly, if I'd written this review immediately upon finishing it, I had been so caught up in it, it probably would have been 5 stars. Yet, as I gave myself some time to reflect a little bit more on it, I realised there were quite a few things that didn't quite work well for me.

The book is centred around Niamh, Helena, Elle and Leonie, a group of friends who have known each other since they were children and, at one point, were all inducted into Her Majesty's Royal Coven, a secret coven of witches protecting the UK from magical threats. Yet, a long war and painful events have left their scars, none of the women is left unscathed, and their friendship is more fragile than ever. The arrival of a mysterious child, Theo, is linked to a prophecy that may destroy the coven itself: dormant tensions will rise to the surface and lines will be drawn in what promises to be a war to eclipse all others.

The story is told in alternating POVs and right from the start I immediately warmed up to Niamh. When we meet her, she has retired from HMRC to conduct a simple life as a vet, at least until trouble comes knocking on her door. Niamh was by far my favourite character and she felt like the best-developed one too. She is well-rounded and complex, fiercely loyal and ready to use her considerable powers to defend those who need help and fight for what she feels is right. I enjoyed every moment spent with her!

In contrast, none of the other characters felt quite as well-developed. I'll keep it vague to avoid spoilers, but one of the witches has quite a dramatic personality shift at one point which, while it certainly serves the plot, felt just a bit too radical in a way that was unexplained. I was also sorry not to spend more time with Leonie and her new coven, which she founded as a more inclusive coven after breaking away from HMRC. The book is steeped in political and social issues, especially those of representation, so to devote so little time to the more inclusive coven and its founder felt a little... off. This is only the first book in the series though, so this may be developed further in future books, but I would have liked to see some of that here.

With only a few exceptions, the secondary characters are also quite thin and mostly interchangeable. This is always a risk when there's a big cast of main characters, but I felt it a lot towards the end of the book when I realised I actually kept mixing some people up and could barely remember their names, let alone any other distinctive traits. This is especially true of the male characters, who are virtually non-existent except as causes of the suffering of the main characters. Now, I'm the first to champion female-centred books and to recognise the harmful role of the patriarchy in society, but the way relations between people of different genders were handled here seemed a bit too simplistic and reductive.

I don't think it's a big spoiler, but one of the characters identifies as trans. I loved this (and this character!), and having this kind of representation is so, so important. However, a lot of the conversations between different characters end up being centred on whether trans women are women, but we barely ever hear directly from this character about her experience and feelings. One POV character is also a TERF and a fair bit of time is spent with her, which is very uncomfortable and might be triggering for some.

Still, the story is extremely engaging and kept me wanting to come back until the ending (that ending!), even despite the multiple UK-centred pop culture references which were cute at first but grew old pretty quickly. I also partly listened to the audiobook for this and that was amazing! Nicola Coughlan is a brilliant narrator and SO good with accents, I could have kept listening to her for many, many more hours.

So, while this wasn't exactly the super-empowering queer feminist witchy urban fantasy of my dreams, Her Majesty's Royal Coven is a highly engaging, page-turning book with some memorable characters and a good start to a series. I'll be looking forward to reading the next book!

I received an advanced review copy of this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Content Warnings

lacyparrish's review against another edition

Go to review page

medium-paced

4.5

So nearly a five-star for me … if I had been a little less able to put it down in the evenings, it would have been. I had to pace myself because so much was happening and I needed to process before reading on. This is equal parts political thriller, modern-day witches, and everyday lives of 30/40-something women with all the messiness you can imagine. I’ve pre-ordered the fancy Waterstones edition of the sequel because I need to know what happens next.

Content Warnings

alexiab's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging funny tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I'm breaking my self imposed review hiatus for this book because I am ABSOLUTELY LOSING MY MIND OVER HOW GOOD IT WAS. Every single aspect is just OUTSTANDING.

While there are a ton of excellent commentaries happening throughout this story about racism, homophobia, transphobia, and sexism there is also an INCREDIBLE fantasy plot with exciting action and heartstopping twists. I can't BELIEVE the exciting and emotional way it ended, and I am champing at the absolute bit for the next book. I'm obsessed with this writing, the balance of character study/women's fiction aspects, world building, and fast paced plot is fabulous. I would read another one of these books for the characters alone, but THAT PLOT! OOOOH THAT PLOT SHE IS SPICY SHE IS EXCITING SHE IS DESTROYING MY VERY SOUL FROM THE INSIDE OUT.

And god, the social commentary on trans women and their place in women's spaces? The white feminism and how it doesn't benefit women of colour? The raging white women fighting for "women's rights" but only women who look like her?! GOD. JUST AMAZING.

A huge part of me thinks this book was written as a direct response to JK Rowling and her bullshit TERF rhetoric, and my god is it incredible. The setting, the fantasy elements, and the themes work so beautifully together and paint the biggest "fuck you" to every TERF out there, I couldn't be more thrilled.

A huge part of me expected Helena's story to go a very different direction, and I am SO thrilled that this didn't remotely pander to the "we're better than them, show them kindness" bullshit that some people spew. every TERF deserves to burn in hell, I'm not sorry. RIP Helena, you crusty bitch.

Content Warnings

sarahs_booknook's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.0

This book had a great premise and some intriguing characters but I feel like it was let down a lot by the writing.
Once the main villain was revealed, I felt th their character became cartoonish.
I felt the politics are discussed with the subtlety of a sledgehammer which really takes from the message it's trying to show.
I would really say to take care if you find transpobia difficult to read as it is really dialled to the max in this.
The book felt finished at the end of the second last chapter. The final chapter felt unnecessary and just an attempt to make this jnto a series that wasn't needed.

Content Warnings

th18's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

Heres a few points I noted down whilst reading:

Fast pace and seemed more YA than anything, too many modern references for me personally but each to their own.
This also felt like the second book of the series at the start there was just so much unexplained things thrown in.
Whilst the book did deal with modern topics such as race and trans rights, I wish it also talked a bit about harmful beauty standards due to Elle literally hiding her true self from her husband.
I feel like the amount of swear words was also unnneeded.
I love the idea of queer witches and empowered modern women but I feel like the talk about adulthood was very bleak
The writing and worldbuilding also felt quite underdeveloped which was disappointing
Finally the use of the d slur was completely unneeded

Although I've only mentioned the negatives, I did have an okay time reading this and it was quite engaging but it could definitely have been better.

Content Warnings

eldritch_reeds's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging funny hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Content Warnings

adancewithbooks's review against another edition

Go to review page

mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I got invited to review the second book in this series and for that I had to give the first book ago. I'm glad I did. While it is not a favorite, I will certainly remember it fondly.

And what I remember fondly is the way this book deals with gender and has a trans character. It was very in your face when it came to correcting other characters misinformed notions. And quite frankly we need more like that. Books that shout about how wrong trans- and homophobia is.

I also enjoyed that this book focused on older females. A friend group that has kids of teen age. And a big variety of different kind of levels. I was mostly invested in Niamh and the characters in her story line because that is where the focus lies. And I think that is also my complaint.

We got all four friends point of views but it mostly layed with Niamh and Helena as secondary. And I think that was a shame. Because I didnt feel like i was getting the time to invest in Leonie and Elle. I think I would especially appreciate Elle more if we had gotten more on her. But as this is a trilogy I hope that we will get more of the other characters.

Content Warnings

More...