Dawson, J: Her Majesty's Royal Coven Her Majesty's Royal Coven 1

If “Sex and the City” were set in Stars Hollow and you added a dash of magic! I love everything about this series. It’s filled with queerness, intersectional feminism and complex characters. At its core “Her Majesty’s Royal Coven” is a book about a secret society of witches in the UK. But on a second look it’s sooo much more. It’s about a group of childhood girlfriends who’ve grown apart over the years and we enter their life at a time when their differences lead to consequences and the tension between them escalates. I especially love that the main protagonists of this book are all middle-aged women—men play little to no part in this story which was very refreshing. The “victim” in this first instalment is a young trans girl, while the main “villain” is a TERF. What starts as suspicion and worry downspirals very quickly and dramatically to transphobia that makes her paranoid to no end. It was a bit healing to read a witch book like that, not going to lie.

A great queer Urban-Fantasy story that has you hooked from the beginning! The characters are multifacetted and grow close to your heart in no time. I rellay enjoyed the diverse cast and the story about modern witches.

Fast alle aktuellen Themen in einem spannenden und gut erzählten Fantasy Roman mit Figuren zu denen man eine Beziehung aufbauen kann die auch für eine Trilogie trägt. Wer keine Cliffhanger mag sollte das letzte Kapitel nicht lesen bevor der nächste Band erscheint.

I went into this book without knowing anything about it, hence why I expected something slightly different based on its title. Maybe that's the reason why to me the story felt like it was dragging throughout the first half of the book. But then it started to become more exciting and my interest in the characters grew. The story finally developed and some more serious and relevant topics became apparent. Besides some great witchcraft, there's a heavy focus on themes like gender and the misuse of power, on privileges and ideology as well as its dangers. While I enjoyed that second part of the book, it didn't manage to convince me completely.