Review: "The Shadow Cabinet" by Juno Dawson
A Mesmerizing Follow-up to "Her Majesty's Royal Coven"
Last September, I read Juno Dawson’s Her Majesty’s Royal Coven (HMRC), the first book in her HMRC trilogy. HMRC is an urban fantasy about four childhood friends and witches who as adults find themselves on opposite sides of a struggle over the future of witchkind. I was enthralled by its story of power, feminism, friendship, and love set in a world of magic that felt incredibly real. I even loved the cliffhanger ending that completely wrecked me. In fact, I found the ending so devastating that it took me over half a year to recover and move on to the second book in the trilogy, The Shadow Cabinet. Now that I have, though, I am happy to say that The Shadow Cabinet delivers another captivating story full of intrigue and action that continues to explore themes of friendship and womanhood.
A word of warning: I will be discussing spoilers from HMRC, so if you haven’t read that book yet, for the love of Gaia go do that now and then come back. Also, if you want to read my review of HMRC, click the link here: https://lesbrary.com/her-majestys-royal-coven-by-juno-dawson/.
Niamh Kelly is dead. Her body is now inhabited by her twin sister Ciara, who had spent the previous nine years in a coma. Suffering from amnesia, she now has to piece together who she was while also maintaining her charade. This means fooling her erstwhile friends, Elle and Leonie, the young transgender witch Theo, Niamh’s boyfriend Luke, the HMRC, and The Shadow Cabinet, a group of non-magical government officials. Tensions between witches and The Shadow Cabinet are already high, making Ciara’s job that much harder. On top of all of this, she has to figure out why she was woken up now. Meanwhile, Leonie is pursuing Dabney Hale, a warlock responsible for the magical civil war that claimed the lives of many witches and warlocks almost ten years ago. Hale is in search of a magical artifact that, if found, would grant him unimaginable power and could spell the end of witch and womankind.
One of the first things I noticed about The Shadow Cabinet in comparison to its predecessor is how much larger of a story it is. There are the main plotlines of Ciara figuring out her identity and purpose as well as Leonie’s pursuit of Dabney Hale. Then there are the smaller character specific plotlines for Elle, Theo, and even Luke, each told through their own POV chapters. While switching between so many different characters’ perspectives and plotlines could have negatively affected the overall narrative, Juno Dawson balanced each perfectly. Switching between the different characters never felt too jarring nor did it negatively affect the pacing of the book. Every storyline felt fully fleshed out, compelling, and crucial to the overall narrative. All of them were woven together perfectly to deliver an explosive finale that kept me on the edge of my seat while also setting things up for the final book in the trilogy. Combine all of this with Juno’s incredibly clever and witty writing and you get a book that I was barely able to put down.
Despite how much larger the story feels, Juno never forgets the smaller, more personal aspects of each character’s story. I had some initial reservations about Ciara, but I ended up loving her as a character and watching her growth. I loved her journey of self-discovery and self-redemption. My heart broke for her as I saw more and more of her treatment by her parents and others growing up. It’s easy to see how being treated as the problem child her entire life led her down a dark path. At the same time, I loved seeing how living as Niamh helped her realize that she doesn’t have to be the monster everyone makes her out to be. Her story is one that pushes us to see how easy it is to lose our way but also how easy it can be to find our way to the light once again.
The other two storylines that really stood out to me were Leonie’s and Theo’s. In my review of HMRC, I noted how I wished to have seen more from these two queer characters, so I appreciated seeing both of them have emotionally powerful storylines here. Leonie’s struggle balancing her desire to catch Hale and her guilt at leaving her girlfriend behind tugged at my heartstrings and felt . It’s the classic love life-work life balance dilemma and it was portrayed beautifully here. I found Theo’s story of processing her transgender identity and emotional baggage from her old life very poignant. It felt very real to see her grapple with her feelings of guilt and abandonment on top of the normal problems of teenage girls. Where both characters end up at the end of the novel left me excited to see more from them in the final installment of the trilogy.
I also appreciated how Juno Dawson, like in HMRC, uses the story of The Shadow Cabinet to tackle current political issues related to feminism and misogyny. Whereas the first novel dealt with debates within feminism, mainly the inclusion of transgender women, this one mostly dealt with threats from outside. The story moves beyond the coven and introduces international secret societies of witchfinders and warlocks hell bent on the subjugation of women and witches by men and warlocks. In giving us an up close view of these things within the world of HMRC, Juno Dawson delivers an unflinching perspective on right-wing men’s right movements and how evil they can be.
Overall, The Shadow Cabinet is a more than worthy second entry into the HMRC Trilogy. It takes the best aspects of the first book and expands it to tell a bigger story that builds upon the first in new and exciting ways. It does all of this while also telling multiple individual stories that are moving on a personal level. It makes me excited to see what comes next in the final book in the series.