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

Her Majesty’s Royal Coven was the political, witchy-sisterhood book I didn’t know I needed.

I really enjoyed this book, and the characters took the cake. The POV characters, their children and wards, their partners, and all of the side characters felt so fleshed out and real. Their relationships were so fun to read about, even the bad ones.

I will say that it wasn’t until well into the book that I felt like I understood how the magic system worked. The delineation between the different types of witches and what they can do, plus the elemental aspect of witchery, made for a lot of information that I still don’t fully grasp.

I’m very excited to read The Shadow Cabinet! 4 stars.

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reubennieandthejets's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Her Majesty's Royal Coven was an engaging read. It does what all good urban fantasy does and blends our mundane reality with a fictional fantastical world in a consistent way. I was able to suspend my disbelief and get sucked onto the story because the world building made sense with reality and the fictional rules of the world Dawson created. However, Her Majesty's Royal Coven has elements that stop it from being a 4 or 5 star book for me. The change of perspective wasn't entirely successful because specific povs felt more three dimensional than others. The depth and nuance in Niamh's and Leonie's chapters made me feel like Dawson enjoyed writing from her povs more. Therefore, I skimmed whenever the pov switched to Helena or Elle because I wanted to get back to the characters that felt more fleshed out. The constant change in perspective also impacted the pacing. It felt like the book kept stopping and starting.

Personally, I think the depiction of transphobic felt slightly unbelievable and abrupt. The rhetoric Helena uses did sound realistic. I'm sure Dawson has heard those exact arguments or had them aimed at her many times. However, the extremity of Helena's transphobia felt too sudden. That level of hated comes after a period of radicalisation and being in an echo chamber of disinformation. So I think, scenes of Helena seeking out other witches should have came before she jumped straight from mild disgust and confusion to fully fledged extremist terf rheotic.

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lorriss's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious

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

4.5

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courtnoodles's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

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corvinscorner's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny tense medium-paced

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

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neni's review against another edition

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lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I really wanted to give this book a higher rating because the whole concept is, in theory, quite cool and full of promise. However, the execution failed spectacularly in several ways:
1 - The biggest flaw for me was the writing. I'm aware this can be somewhat of a personal preference, but the writing style felt juvenile, empty and overly descriptive. There were often massive chunks of info-dumping about the world-building that could have been introduced in other ways, as well as long descriptions of common place objects/concepts intersperced with unnecessary pop culture references that just added clunk to the flow of the story. This is a great example of "telling, not showing". Everything was told to us in the same tone, so that descriptions of outfit colours and characters emotional status felt like they had the same weight.
2 - I went into this not knowing anything at all about the story, so I was quite surprised by the themes in the second half of the book. Not in a negative way. Trying to be as spoiler free as possible here, I think this was an interesting setting to explore the "arguments" that get thrown around when approaching the subject, and I wish we could have focused more on this instead of trying to do 10 other things with the story and the characters. It felt like the author wanted to cram as much representation and equality issues as possible in there, while also keeping it fun and light, and also dramatic and adventurous at the end. It all just felt shallow and not developed enough. I would have prefered to see Theo's story developed in a more sensible, complex way, instead of having the theme thrust upon the reader out of nowhere and have one of the main characters turn into an obnoxious Disney movie Villain half way through. I think it took away from the emotional connection the reader might have had with the characters, and it all ended up feeling a bit like those run of the mill adventure action movies you go see in the theater and immediatelly forget after. Then again, if you're looking for a fun fast read about LGBTQIA+ witches I suppose this isn't a bad choice.
3 - That ending! Brought the writing down half a point I'm sorry to say. I HATE it when author's do that. Just completely unnecessary, out of the blue, plotwist cliffhanger just so the reader feels compelled to immediately jump into reading the next book. I'm sorry. That's cheap af and I will not be continuing on.

Finally, and this isn't really a criticism, more of a funny observation - after the developments of the second half of the book, I cannot, for the life of me, not picture J.K.Rowling anytime a certain white rich TERF bitch is in a scene and that's kinda funny and probably on purpose lol

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