Reviews

The Councillor by E.J. Beaton

kait_unicorn's review

5.0

Amazing characters, fantastic plot, and also, KINKY PEOPLE! Oh, and class awareness in a monarchy that recognises that replacing the current monarchy with a monarchy of the currently oppressed group does not, in fact, do anything to address poverty and oppression.

riley_rose's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

gitte15's review against another edition

4.0

Wonderful characters and world building! The only reason it's not a 5-star is that I saw the main plot twist coming from the very beginning...
Looking forward to the sequel!

song's review against another edition

2.0

ok I read 60% of this and skimmed the last 40%... excellent premise, but I've read the same storyline, better executed, in half many pages. the whole dance around dante and jale was just... unnecessary... the MC had an aggravating tendency to make overly obvious observations but also act like she didn't REALLY know what they meant when it's literally spelled out on the page?? made me think of that argument abt book characters being too much like the type of ppl who would write books

lanid's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Minor: Blood, Drug use, Gore, Addiction, Classism, Death, Drug abuse, Genocide, Murder, and Violence

archcon's review

Not sure I like it, and have fallen out of headspace to try and read more of it

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse and Drug use

siavahda's review

5.0

Highlights
~Machiavelli, if Machiavelli wasn’t a dick
~The presents are code and the code is snark
~Who gets the crown? Everybody!
~Snakes
~Forget knives, the assassins have fireballs
~Do you want some kink with your romance, madam?
~Silver > gold
~A very pretty quill
~Bookworms kick ass, actually

Everyone is touting this book as a Machiavellian fantasy, so the first thing you need to know about The Councillor is that yes, it absolutely is Machiavellian.

The second thing you need to know about The Councillor is that it is absolutely not Machiavellian at all.

Read the rest at Every Book a Doorway!

dhee_reads's review

5.0

Probably the sexiest bk I've read in a minute. 3 perfectly done love interests. Intrigue and mystery even after bk ends. Charice's presence is felt throughout the bk even though she's m.i.a for most of it. The moment we get with her--she's so strong. Not mercurial at all. I love her for it. Her resolve and her taking step back from Lysande because of Sarelin is fascinating. Luca - I like him for what we know of him. He challenges Lysande. He moves the plot along and adds to any scene he is in. I don't trust him. But I am so glad is a part of the story. Not going to lie, he and Lysande danced around each other this whole bk. It was not a will they won't they but rather a question of when. It almost feels it could be anytime now. Derset brought out how vulnerable Lysande is. She was so cautious in expressing her sexuality in its totality

Spoiler

that she only saw what she wanted to see of Derset. He won her trust when he said he liked what she liked.

Cassia- Sarelin bond was core need for Lysande. Her death left gaping whole in Lysande. I think Cassia being in her life gives something back to Lysande. I loved seeing what friendship with Cassia, an older woman, means to her. I also love Jale moment when he tells Lysande that she's a good listener. It's small compliment but huge moment. The same goes for her friendship with Litany. It's harder for Lysande than most other MCs to make friends. So it means a lot more when she does. It feels like a big win at the end of story.

This is a bk I want to reread soon. Beaton writes challenges, desire and ambition with precision. The fantasy is seamless with internal and political conflict. I cannot wait to get into the thick of Lysande's magic and addiction next bk. Really truly my best of list for 2021.

realmsofmymind's review against another edition

mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

4.0

When the queen dies suddenly without an heir, Lysande Prior is the last one to expect her appointment as Councillor. She is a scholar by training and, more importantly, lowborn; no one expected her to be given the role of choosing the next ruler of the empire. But with rumored sightings of the White Queen (a long ago defeated usurper of the throne) increasing, Lysande has to accept her position and find a way to keep the empire stable while she makes her choice. The problem is, Lysande knows that the queen died by poison - and the four eligible candidates for the throne are the prime suspects. 

THE COUNCILLOR is an intricate fantasy revolving around succession politics, imperfect legacies, and the weaponization of history. It is also somewhat dense and reflective, requiring patience to make it to some extremely rewarding chapters, including a spectacular finale. I love a good story about court intrigue, and THE COUNCILLOR was here to deliver. Lysande may have grown up in the castle, but she's an outsider, dismissed for being an orphan of no standing. Somehow, she has to overcome her doubts and fears and take command of people who don't think she should be in charge. This is a story of a woman growing into her own power in all aspects of her life, and it was rewarding to see her accept her own value and to force others to see it too. 

The story definitely throws you into the deep end right off the bat, and it took me a while to sort through the names of the different city states and nearby countries, figuring out who was in the empire and who was without (a map would have been incredibly helpful). Add in a writing style that occasionally wasn't clear about who it was referencing in a sentence, and you have a book that requires a good amount of focus to latch onto in the beginning. And while things in the plot are constantly moving and progressing (the queen is murdered in the first 20 pages after all), there's also a lot of time spent being reflective and processing grief, while also coming to terms with the new power Lysande wields. 

This all created a book that, on the whole, was slower-paced than I normally prefer. It has exceedingly long chapters, sometimes 30-40 pages, which is something I personally bounce off against. I like more frequent breaks in writing that allow me an easy off ramp to pause as needed. 

But despite that languid pacing there were definitely moments that I found it hard to put the book down. One meeting of the council and an ambassador had me on the edge of my seat, as the outcome could mean not only war, but immediate violence in the room. Another revelation had me outright gasp; and after spending a week getting through the first 300 pages, I read the final 150 in one sitting. What's more, Lysande is never sure who she can trust, forcing her to constantly juggle multiple political alliances both inside and out of the royal court as she tries to keep the kingdom together long enough to instill a new leader. 

And even while I griped about it being reflective, it does have interesting things to muse about. Lysande in particular is dealing with the fact that a woman she admired and respected also did a lot of terrible things in the name of the safety and security of the kingdom; she has a growing realization that her own legacy might be undoing that of her predecessor. It also grapples with the adage of history being written by the victor, and how the erasure of certain peoples from the history books is part of preventing them from imagining that they should aspire to anything more. 

Lastly, there is a romance subplot in here, though it's not a simple rivals-to-lovers romance. (And to be clear, this book is more sensual than explicit, with fade-to-black before anything gets too spicy.) While Lysande is confidently bi (this being a queernorm world), she is less confident about what she wants in a partner, both romantically and in the bedroom. Part of her evolution is realizing who and what is right for her, as well as the fact that she's in her right to desire those things. 

In short, THE COUNCILLOR is worth your time, if you are the kind of person who doesn't mind a slower, denser read. While I admittedly struggled with it on some days and had to wait for the right headspace, when the book clicked for me, it was on fire. THE COUNCILLOR won't be for everyone, but the those able to give it the patience it deserves will find a meaty political fantasy of succession and revolution. 

inktreader's review against another edition

slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

1.5

This book sticks out in my mind as a visceral memory of a book that I think I absolutely despised the further I read. I remember reading the synopsis and thinking I was going to get something with significant political intrigue with some sprinkles of romance here and there. It felt more like the actual politics was a sidepiece to the prose describing the attractiveness of the other characters that Lysande meets.

Speaking of the romance, the only ideas we get of Lysande's bisexual relationships occurred before the story starts, and most of what happens in the story seems to revolve around how she is drawn to Luca and his pale skin..so it's mostly heterosexual. I can't recall how many pages of his descriptions I had to read and it felt like the plot was going nowhere. Like, your Queen/Friend was poisoned at the beginning and we're about to have a political conflict but hey--can we PLEASE focus on this instead of doing drugs or banging? Everyone was just incredibly horny. The characters and the world itself felt as deep as cardboard cutouts, and that they were simply backdrops for sex. I almost straight-up DNF'd at 95% because it felt like dragging myself across a bed of nails to get through the last part. There's nothing wrong with the book having smut, but then I think it should've been marketed differently.