Book Review: The Shadow Cabinet by Juno Dawson

‘The Shadow Cabinet’ by Juno Dawson is the second book of her fantasy trilogy ‘Her Majesty’s Royal Coven’. The first book was released in 2022, and my review is available here!

‘The Shadow Cabinet’ by Juno Dawson was released in May 2023, and was a highly-anticipated sequel to the sensational ‘Her Majesty’s Royal Coven’. I was worried that ‘The Shadow Cabinet’ may suffer the infamous second book slump that affects many series’, where the second merely exists as a segway from Point A to Point B – but I had nothing to fear!

With incredibly compelling, exciting fast-paced content from a variety of perspectives, not just the core four of the Hebden Bridge girls, you get a vaster understanding of how this network of witches works, on both a national and international level. It was incredibly interesting to see these characters interact with the wider world. For example, how Leonie navigates international espionage in a mission to find her brother, Radley, who has been missing since Dabney Hale’s escape.

This book was so interesting, and I had such a visceral reaction to not only the enormity of the core four’s magic but also the scope of the abilities of side characters. Silly as it seems, knowing that the bureaucrats in HMRC have such strong powers just further demonstrated why going to war against Witchkind was a stupid decision.

I also enjoyed getting to see glimpses into the world of Dabney Hale. In the previous book, Helena Vance’s interactions with him were laced with pent-up sexual tension. She’d slept with him before, Hell, she loved him, but seeing a clearer point of view was incredibly interesting. Hale was a bigot, he was greedy, and malcontent, and he thought he was right to do as he was doing, using Ciara, and other members of his inner circle as sacrificial pawns in his games. It was so good and interesting and horrifying that at points, my skin was crawling! Dawson knows when to up the ante when it comes to her use of imagery, and the scene with the horse carcass was one hell of a punch to the gut.

Dawson, once again, had me floored with her use of character voice. The vibes from the second you’re in Ciara’s head are completely different, especially as she fights to work out what happened in her coma.

The use of the reoccurring theme of divine femininity and feminine rage is so interesting to read! Each character’s own sense of anguish means the magic manifests differently. I loved the scope of power being manipulated, and how one irrational, angry decision could take an age to fix – Elle’s mistake was made in visceral rage and you empathise with her raw emotion, but the reader lacked that same empathy for characters like Helena for her own rage back in ‘Her Majesty’s Royal Coven’. It’s incredibly clever how anger and magic interweave. Magic and emotions and intention working together is just perfect in so many ways.

Then there’s the echoes of the original Sullied Child prophecy. Like Niamh says in the first book, that prophecy can be applied to anyone, and the more you learn about some of the other characters, you learn that most of the main or supporting characters could be The Sullied Child. Theo isn’t off the hook though, and she has to navigate the world of witchcraft with the superstition that she could still be the force behind Leviathan incredibly distressing. But what is so fantastic is it really could be any of them – for a brief while in the first book, I suspected that Snow Vance-Morril would be The Sullied Child, and in her absence, I can only wonder if my original theory would have any weight to it in the third book. In ‘The Shadow Cabinet’, I was suspicious of Milo, of Radley, of Dabney, Jude and Smythe. And don’t get me started on Ciara.

Then there’s the reveal at the end! My jaw was on the literal floor! I wasn’t expecting that at all – and the second it happened, everything clicked into place. I was mortified. It was insane. Such powerful, compelling storytelling. I never saw it coming.

Truly, this book had me in an utter vice. The second I finished it, I hurled it across the room, flipping it off. I didn’t want to wait to see what happened next – I am a girl who yearns for immediate gratification and patience is not one of my strong suits. I genuinely cannot even begin to tell you how excited I am to read about the consequences of Theo’s choices. This series is incredible thus far!