A review by thelostvoid
The Councillor by E.J. Beaton

4.0

This was absolutely not what I was expecting it to be, shocker. I found it to be both engaging and more predictably uninteresting which feels like a wild combination. The characters and their relationships felt solid, I particularly adored Luca

something about the suave, aggressively competent, villain-coded twink being the most submissive man to exist really hits the spot

and found all the Councillors to be intriguing. But the intrigue of the plot itself fell quite flat. Reveals that didn't feel like reveals at all happening in sequence which made me really lose interest in the plot towards the end

just in time for Luca and Lysande to start more purposefully flirting to pick up the slack

. Genuinely giving this an extra half star because of how much Luca as a character scratches my brain just right, he even has the same name as one of the only DnD characters I ever played through an entire campaign with. Wild!

Overall, I didn't go in with super high expectations and left feeling like this was a decent book which I think I want to like more than I did. Unfortunate. Moira Quirk did a great job with the audiobook though!