Agent: Julie Crisp, Julie Crisp Literary. Readers will need to be patient to get to the goods.

The pace accelerates and stakes become clear once Lysande’s foil, Luca Fontaine, arrives in the mix-but it’s a long wait. In dense, occasionally overwritten prose, Beaton excavates Lysande’s inner life, sometimes at the expense of worldbuilding, which is maddeningly slow to cohere. Beaton presents an excellent and compelling fantasy debut with The Councillor, an outstanding and impressive read. This premise is typical of high fantasy, but the language, pacing, and relentless imagery-black roses, writing quills, and the colors gold and green feature prominently-are of a different order. Publisher: Daw Books (Hardcover - 20 July 2021) Series: The Councillor - Book One Length: 442 pages My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars Amazon Book Depository Australian author E. Thus, while Lysande seeks the defeat of the White Queen, she’s equally driven to protect everyday elementals. Beaton’s debut is an expertly crafted story of cut-throat politics, courtly intrigue, addiction, sex, and murder, gilded by some of the most eloquent writing I’ve read in a long while. But no one suspects Lysande’s addiction to a magical potion, supplied by an elemental friend. Winner of Debut of the Year in the Fantasy Hive Awards. Praise for The Councillor The Councillor is, in a word, sumptuous. Beaton’s debut is an expertly crafted story of cut-throat politics, courtly intrigue, addiction, sex, and murder, gilded by some of the most eloquent writing I’ve read in a long while. Now the last elemental power player, the White Queen, is suspected of Sarelin’s assassination. Elira is ostensibly a post-magical realm, the land’s former rulers, the elementals, having been ousted by humans with magic-neutralizing handcuffs. When Lysande’s royal mentor, Queen Sarelin, is assassinated, Lysande, now 22, becomes the Councillor, tasked with selecting the next ruler of Elira. Beaton’s slow-moving fantasy debut follows a volume of poetry ( Unbroken Circle) and a PhD thesis on Shakespearean drama-and these influences manifest clearly throughout the saga of Lysande Prior, an orphan swept from indigence to be raised in the Eliran palace.

The Councillor by E.J. Beaton