---
title: Her Majesty's Royal Coven is my favourite book of 2023 (so far)
date: 2023-07-27T06:27:20.410Z
slug: 2023-07-27-hmrc
author: Thomas Wilson

---
I think I first saw Dawson's book in a Sunday Times magazine, as a new release.  The premise was that witches are real and the UK government has a coven (HMRC) of witches.  

There are spoilers after this paragraph.  If that's not cool, stop reading here and immediately go to your local library and reserve a copy of this book (because I give good odds it's already checked out by someone else), or buy a copy.  Hell, do both, see if I care.

Okay, free range spoilers from here one.  

I love (*love*) fantasy books with witchy or occult vibes.  I love fantasy because you can take something from this real (mundane, mostly non-magical) world, and try to reflect back the beauty or strangeness of a thing.  War is still war, love is still love, even if you've got magic spells or demons.  

I love occult and witchy vibes because if I was a witch I could have a cottage and a cat and be mostly left alone to my own enchanting devices.

This book takes some really fucking difficult ideas about the politics and power of gender and identity, about the irrational basis for un-moveable prejudices or hatred and says "but what if adventure with witches" _and it works_.

Nothing has been this just-one-more-ritz-cracker level of readable to me since I read all the *Hunger Games* books irresponsibly close to university finals in 2010.  

In a second I'm going to start talking about how it's so impressive that it's this readable while also bringing in a bunch of other good ideas.  The plot and pacing, the adventure and twists, turns make the bones of this book strong and moreish.

Few villains have made me feel the chest-clenching anger and frustration since D. Umbridge in the 2000s.  

Glad you brought it up, Wilson, the Harry Potter comparison.  Let's not mince words: it's a shame that an author who created such enchanted childhood moments for me, and millions others, keeps making the choice to amplify ideas that de-legitimise and de-humanise women.  It's a real shame that people will value her opinion more because she wrote some wildly successful books for children.  It's a shame that she cannot, as an author, perform  empathy with other humans and thinks that suffering and prejudice is sort of inevitable and a source of pride, not a wound to heal.  But I digress.

Luckily this is just ("just") hate speech to me, and not invitations for people to direct hatred and anger towards me.  Dawson is a trans woman, and HMRC is a book about witches and warlocks and which centres around magical children.  

One of those children is a trans girl.

It would be easier for Dawson to write a more direct Magical School Trans Girl Protagonist book.  The marketing of "Harry Potter but Trans Girl" is probably an easier sell.  The Daily Mail could write some trite headline about "Schools force Harryetta Potter on our children, no thanks" and we could all pretend that's more acceptable than racism?  I digress further still.  

I had a few more paragraphs like this but I eventually over virtue-signalled to even myself, so things got quite bad.  Recognise trans people and fuck intolerance and hate speech.

But instead, Dawson has not written a book for children.  She has written a book for people who want a really fucking good witchy adventure, and uses the existence of trans people as a nucleus for conflict and tension for the characters.  

It is clear that Dawson has thought long and hard about gender politics and identity.  About how a lot of the arguments against trans people boil down to "I don't think it's right".  A point that people try to dress up with various physical/biological points, which magic does provide an *incredibly* good way to side-step.  To emphasise how these beliefs aren't anything substantial - they are just stubborn prejudice and hate.

The book looks at the masculinity and ego, about uniting and dividing women, sisterhood, and about growing older with childhood friends.  It looks at some really superb parts of us, as humans, then adds witches, and then says "that's ridiculous, right?".

Man, read this book.