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

The book opens the night before five young girls officially become witches. The story then jumps and follows these same characters now that they’ve matured into their more powerful and responsible lives.

The author does a great job at showing the different personalities, not so easy when there are a lot of characters. The women are no longer close like in childhood; there’s friction between the power-hungry head of England’s coven, the mild witch who pretends to be a simple housewife, the Black lesbian who started her own LGBTQ-friendly coven, and the veterinarian consumed with grief at the loss of her fiancé during the witch war eight years ago. There are spouses and lovers and children and parents and, new to the group, a trans orphan who’s terrified and lashing out in fear. The story is told from four points of view and the voices are distinct.

I read reviews where the readers felt the race and gender issues overshadowed the story. I thought the author raised really important points relevant to current racism, homophobia, and transphobia. The transphobia was heavy-handed but it seemed realistic given what I read online.

I liked it enough where I’m about to start the second in the series. I want to see what happens to these people.

Content Warnings

melaniesmolter's review against another edition

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adventurous 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

3.75

Content Warnings

kaceyjoy's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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itsy719's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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queerreaderchaos's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

4.0

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shae_purcell's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

3.75

I didn't like this book as much as I thought I might. I enjoyed the multi-POV chapters and the diverse representation. I liked a lot of the characters and relationships. I don't know what it is. It fell a little flat for me, like the characters could have been fleshed out more maybe.

A word of warning: Don't go into this expecting a tidy ending. It ends on a huge cliffhanger. I was ready to start the second book until I was halfway through that last chapter. Now I'm really irritated and thinking about taking a break. I'm sure as an author you want readers to be so excited for the next book that they'll run out and pick up a copy immediately. This ending didn't make me excited for the next book. It makes me dread reading it, even though I still kind of want to hang out with the characters a bit more. I may pick it up eventually but I'll feel sour about it.

Content Warnings

raccoonteeth's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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