Female leader's novel relating to a form of government (7)
I believe the answer is:
federal
'to a form of government' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'female leader's novel' is the wordplay.
'female' becomes 'f' (abbreviation).
'novel' indicates anagramming the letters (letters in a new or novel order).
'leader' is an anagram of 'ederal'.
'f'+'ederal'='FEDERAL'
'relating' is the link.
I am not very happy about this link. It may be part of another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for federal that I've seen before include "Relating to a treaty" , "Relating to a form of government with power shared between the centre and the regions" , "The F in FBI" , "Lad-free (anag)" , "National, in the US" .)