Her Majesty's Royal Coven by Juno Dawson

Title: Her Majesty’s Royal Coven

Author: Juno Dawson

Publisher: Penguin 2022

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 448

Rating: 5/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Fall TBR - Buddy Read Discussion

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.

Oh goodness! We picked this book hoping for a accessible and lighter read after some heavy choices. It was a much easier read, but one that was loaded with a lot of interesting questions and topics. Right away I picked up on the dichotomy between HMRC and Diaspora. We get some great conversations about race and privilege that harken back to many criticism of Third Wave Feminism. I’m looking forward to discussing the topic deeper during our discussion. We also get some great pieces about identity in general. I loved Niamh and Leonie so much as they try to navigate the intersections of their past and their present. I loved seeing how these two women were still supportive of all their coven sisters even when there were disagreements. I was rooting for both of those women to really come into their own throughout this story. The story itself becomes super fast-paced in the last 1/3 of the novel racing to a final confrontation. I did not quite see the ending playing out like it did, but was really enjoying the story. This volume leaves off on a very big cliffhanger, so beware. I will most definitely be picking up the next one once it’s released.

Her Majesty’s Royal Coven

• #1 Her Majesty’s Royal Coven

• #2 The Shadow Cabinet

• #3 untitled

Next up on the TBR pile:

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe

Title: The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane

Author: Katherine Howe

Publisher: Voice 2009

Genre: Historical fiction (well, sort of)

Pages: 384

Rating:   5 / 5 stars

Reading Challenges: Historical Fiction; A to Z - P; Mount TBR; Semi Charmed Challenge - Place I've Always Wanted to Visit (Salem, Massachusetts)

How I Got It: I own it!

A spellbinding, beautifully written novel that moves between contemporary times and one of the most fascinating and disturbing periods in American history-the Salem witch trials.

Harvard graduate student Connie Goodwin needs to spend her summer doing research for her doctoral dissertation. But when her mother asks her to handle the sale of Connie's grandmother's abandoned home near Salem, she can't refuse. As she is drawn deeper into the mysteries of the family house, Connie discovers an ancient key within a seventeenth-century Bible. The key contains a yellowing fragment of parchment with a name written upon it: Deliverance Dane. This discovery launches Connie on a quest--to find out who this woman was and to unearth a rare artifact of singular power: a physick book, its pages a secret repository for lost knowledge.

As the pieces of Deliverance's harrowing story begin to fall into place, Connie is haunted by visions of the long-ago witch trials, and she begins to fear that she is more tied to Salem's dark past then she could have ever imagined.

Written with astonishing conviction and grace, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane travels seamlessly between the witch trials of the 1690s and a modern woman's story of mystery, intrigue, and revelation.

Beautifully written story across the years.  I love it when an author competently bridges decade gaps to create a cohesive storyline.  Some of my favorite parts were the interludes set in the 1690s and 1700s.  Howe manages to create believable worlds, characters, and grounded settings.  The detail that she put into the descriptions of the houses and clothing was very remarkable.

I loved the characters and connected immediately with Connie.  She may be a bit too serious and a bit too much a loner, but she feels like me in another life.  I loved how Connie took the logical steps in solving the mystery of the key.  I could see myself following in her footsteps, moving from clue to clue, realizations dawning.  The mystery wasn't hard to guess, but the book was written in such a way that I kept reading, not caring that I knew the ending.

After speeding through the book, I read Howe's notes at the back.  They made my love of the book make sense.  Howe is a historian specializing in New England and Colonial America.  She based Prudence Bartlett on Martha Ballard -- famous midwife of the early American period.  I've read her journals.  Now I see why I felt those parts were familiar.  Howe based Deliverance's grimoire on the Key of Solomon.  I never read it, but read of it.  I think How's attention to detail and historical basis resonated in the historian and academic in me.  They made me love the novel even more.