A Discovery of Witches meets The Craft in this the first installmant of this epic fantasy trilogy about a group of childhood friends who are also witches.'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 an attempted coup and Helena is now 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 percieves as the deepest betryal, 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 is being detained and seems to threaten the very existence of HMRC. Everyone knows that warlocks shouldn't be this powerful and when it's revealed that Theo is transgender, it makes sense. But Helena has absolutely no intention of inducting a trans girl into HMRC, and her subsequent actions send ruptures through not only her group of friends, but the whole community - and this time, it looks like there's no turning back. Juno Dawson explores the big topics concerning women today: gender, feminism, the patriarchy and the corrupting nature of power, in an explosive, conversation-starting novel that is sharp, funny, provocative and joyous. Most of all, HMRC is the story of female friendship. Dealing with all the aspects of 30-something womanhood today, as well as being phenomenally powerful witches, Niamh, Helena, Leonie and Elle may have grown apart but they will always be bound by the sisterhood of the coven.

SUPERSTAR AUTHOR: Juno Dawson is a big bestseller in the UK, where she has published all YA fiction until now. This is both her adult fiction debut and US fiction debut. She has 44k followers on Twitter and 22k followers on Instagram. She is an advocate for trans rights and trans visibilty, and wrote the nonfiction books This Book is Gay and What's the T?, and is a School Role Model for the nonprofit Stonewall. She has several TV projects in development. Basically, her star is on the rise. She has already accomplished so much and is only going to shine bigger and brighter.IRRESISTIBLE WITCHY PREMISE: From The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina to A Discovery of Witches, witches dominate pop culture right now. The title of this book almost sells itself, as it combines witchcraft with an Anglophile love of all things royal.STRONG AREA FOR VIKING PENGUIN: With Deb Harkness and Lev Grossman, as well as with The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic by Emily Croy Barker and The Last Days of Magic by Paul Tompkins, Viking Penguin have proven ourselves as a publisher of fantasy with crossover appeal for a general commercial audience.PAPERBACK ORIGINAL POTENTIAL: Like a more contemporary, millennial version of A Discovery of Witches, Her Majesty's Royal Coven will appeal to readers who have outgrown YA fantasy and are looking for something slightly fresher than some of the established franchises. Paperback original is the perfect format for breaking out this trilogy.