The Incandescent by Emily Tesh is a wonderfully atmospheric dark academia novel. I enjoyed the shift from the typical student focused academia book to a professor focused book. This book is a love letter to teachers and staff at schools. It is a slower paced book, but a highly enjoyable read. I recommend it for people who loved Naomi Novik’s Scholomance series.

CW: Corpses (Minor); Amputation; Burns;

This book started out great. Hypercompetent Saffy Walden, administrator and teacher extraordinaire, and tough-as-nails demon slayer knight Laura Kenning, both work at a magical school. The two are awkward around each other, as Walden teaches classes about summoning demons, and Kenning is responsible for school safety. A powerful demon known as Old Faithful infiltrates the school, and these kickass ladies work together to fight it off, with romantic attraction finally admitted between them. Oh, and Walden’s phoenix tattoo turns out to be a trapped demon bound to her. Up to this point? Loved this book. Very good inversion of magic school trope by focusing on the administrators more than the students, cool world building, intrigued to see what comes next.

What comes next, though, is that our power couple splits up, with Kenning taking the fall for the infiltration and moving away. Walden and Kenning agree not to pursue a long-distance relationship. Disappointing, but makes sense given that there would definitely be consequences of said demon infiltration. But then, everything at school just bogs down into administrative detail, and Walden hooks up with a guy she admits is dangerous and she doesn’t trust. It’s a shift in character and focus that makes no sense and is no fun. It does, eventually, led to a demonic possession – which itself was pretty disappointing, since we only see a very, very small portion of it.

While I was satisfied with the ending of the book, the disappointing second act and demonic possession aspect really soured the experience for me, despite Tesh’s excellent prose.

Thank to Tor for the gifted copy of this book!

Doctor Sapphire Walden is the Director of Magic and a professor at Chetwood Academy, a school of magic in England. She's stretched thin with meetings, teaching, and securing the school from demons... and everything else that comes with being a school administrator.

THE INCANDESCENT is a slow-paced, atmospheric, and character-driven dark academia book. I loved the perspective shift of focusing on the Director of the school rather than the students, the mishap of A-level student accidentally summoning a powerful demon, and magical contracts. However, this book moved a little too slowly for me and it was hard for me to feel like much was happening. I think this book will find its perfect audience when it publishes!

The Incandescent is a book that wears its love for teachers, handymen, and anyone who works in support of the educational system on its sleeves. The in-depth look at the minutiae of running a school, managing a department, juggling meetings and making time for staff development and security training all reads incredibly sincere and, more importantly, makes for interesting reading. Helping this all along is, of course, the incredible magic system that revolves around demons, warding, and dark secrets that make this a star candidate for the next hit novel in the 'dark academia' genre. I was fascinated by the contracts, the issue of personification, the dangers of possession, and how all these elements came together to bring the school to the point of disaster. That there is a second act full of even more incredible action, character development, and sinister stakes really elevated this book to one of my favorite thing's I've read this year.

This book felt first and foremost like a love letter to teachers. The day-to-day intricacies of the main character’s job teaching students magic were very well-written and the main draw for me. Doctor Walden shows over and over that she truly loves her job despite how demanding it is, and I think real-life teachers would enjoy her character. As for the plot, while it didn’t take me by complete surprise in the same way the author’s previous book Some Desperate Glory did, I still enjoyed the twists and turns it took. I’d recommend this to anyone looking for a realistic take on magic schools, and I think the comps to Naomi Novik’s Scholomance series were well-drawn.

Dr Sapphire Walden is a professor and Director of Magic at Chetwood Academy, an elite magical boarding school. Like any teacher/administrator, she's stretched thinner than she'd like, from overseeing the wards that protect the school from demons to teaching A-level evocation magic. Her approach is all about risk management - assume that something will go wrong and think instead about how to mitigate repercussions. (Dr Walden and I would get along smashingly as colleagues.) When planning an A-level class about summoning a demon, she knows that her students won't do it perfectly, but it's a learning process... until they summon a powerful demon called Old Faithful who has been hanging around the school grounds on the demonic plane for centuries, and dragging up old memories from Walden's own A-level year.

I loved this book. One problem I often run into with Dark Academia is that it focuses on the students, and I don't tend to prefer the young adult/new adult perspective in most of my books. Walden was the perfect POV character for me: she's a bisexual 38-year-old no-nonsense director with a strong sense of empathy. She allows herself to be continually surprised by her students and colleagues, even when she'd prefer to be a pessimist, and perhaps most importantly she allows herself grace and forgiveness and growth from her mistakes. Emily Tesh masterfully writes a well-rounded and relatable character, whose experience in the face of demons feels like a breath of fresh air in the genre.

The magic system is all about contracts (fantasy writers take note, this is the way to my heart), and while some people have more proclivity towards magic than others, there's no innate magical ability that allows one person to be a magician over another. There's a practicality to Walden and to this book that speaks to me, from the mistakes we make to the successes we see to the love we find.
I was hooked from start to finish.

This was such a great read. Dealing with demons and magic and trying to stay alive is harder than it sounds. And when you add in the fact that one of the biggest dangers is in the school itself, this becomes a really intriguing story.

Chetwood is an idyllic, centuries-old boarding school full of magical children, imp-infested technological devices, rigorous studies, and a Director of Magic with almost as many secrets as the school itself.

Dr. Saffy Walden has been at Chetwood since she attended as a student herself and now spends almost all her time running staff meetings, negotiating with the photocopier's most recent demon occupant, teaching her high level Invocation students, and fine-tuning Chetwood's magical defenses. However, despite butting heads with the school's gorgeous head of Marshals, a threat to the very existence of Chetwood is starting to stir along the bounds of our world and theirs.

A character-driven story, beautifully written, with a lead well into her thirties! The teacher pov is a refreshing take on the magical boarding school setting, allowing the reader to really dig into the magical system of this world and be led through the plot as we learn more about the main characters.

demons and pacts | magical boarding school | teacher mc | bi x lesbian romance | dark academia | for fans of The Scholomance series

4.5 stars, rounding up. Can confirm this is far superior to the Scholomance series and a standout in the "dark academia" genreas a whole. This book has some truly incredible characters and an ending that I absolutely didn't see coming. The only real critique i have of this is that the writing style is bit dense at times. Also, if you aren't familiar with the British education system, there will be parts where you'll need to do some googling...

The story as a whole is a reflective, slightly slice of life, character driven story that focuses on the day to day administrative duties of someone with way to many responsibilities and little to no social life. There's also demon summoning and a historic magical school.

This is a really unique novel in that the protagonist is 38, and is a fully well rounded and realized character. As someone who reads a lot of fantasy, this age is criminally underrepresented in favor of 18 year olds, and as a 30 something I found this so refreshing and unique. It's nice to read MC's who have a bit of life experience and aren't just running at every obstacle full blast while simultaneously monologing about their lover's eyelashes. Also, this may be the first time I've read a dark academia told from the point of view of the teacher, not the student!! I would love to read more books about this and I hope other authors are out there taking notes.

4.5 and would definitely read more from Emily Tesh.

This is a pretty solid magic academia story! I think the main character is really well crafted and believable. I do think that some things were a little too easy to resolve and there were a few info dumps thst made the story feel disconnected at points.

Wow! This was a beautifully fun read. This was what I wanted "The Atlas" series to be like, and if this one doesn't get the same kind of recognition, it will be a true injustice. That series was a serious letdown, while this standalone 100% delivers on the "magical dark academia" that it promises! The MC is fantastic, and as an (almost 40 year old) career educator, I really appreciated her POV. I'd be curious to know if Tesh spent time as an educator, because she NAILED what the behind the scenes life of an educator is really like. All the extra business to attend to, the meetings, the paperwork, the passing conversations with friends in the hallway because that's all you have time for between lessons. I really appreciated the little jokes and nods to the life of an educator that Tesh made here. Aside from that, the setting is about as magical as you could ask for, a British boarding school for the upper crust where magic is taught to students who have an aptitude. It's a cool premise in that the magic is just part of the mundane world. People know about it, and it is woven into society, but only certain people can use it. Thus, the school in question teaches perfectly ordinary subjects as well, which is a fun way to present the "magic school" setting. The story was never boring, the plot was well developed, and the surprise bit, while foreshadowed, did not go down exactly as I was anticipating it would, which is always nice. This was a REALLY great read for fans of magic and dark academia.

The Incandescent by Emily Tesh
Review by James Thomson

Emily Tesh brings us the dark academia tale we didn’t know we needed; told from the perspective of a senior member of staff trying to stop the pupils from being eaten by demons (not least because of all the paperwork).

Dr Saffy Walden, MThau, PhD, works at Chetwood Academy as the Director of Magic. Alongside the endless marking, meetings, and general bureaucracy that comes with her administrator position at the school, she still gets to do a fair bit of teaching to the sixth form. There are the usual hormone fuelled dramas too, of course, but also the small matter of trying to stop them from getting possessed, and / or opening portals to hell dimensions. Teenagers do not always make the best decisions, but then, sometimes neither do the adults.

In addition to the teaching staff, there are also the Marshalls; essentially magical cops, an ancient order who are there to protect humanity from the demons (and, if somewhat unspoken, from the staff and students too). They are led by Laura Kenning, who has a deep distrust of Dr Walden, and the feeling is distinctly mutual - if only Laura wasn’t quite so attractive.

The world is built up well, exploring a lot of the day to day runnings of the school before things inevitably go sideways in the second half. The story did not go at all in the directions I expected, although one of the villains may as well have been twirling a moustache throughout their introduction. There is a pleasant romance subplot, although it’s not the main focus of the story.

There are a number of delightful and imaginative touches to this world, which is very similar to our own only with magic woven through it. You have to be very careful not to refer to everyday objects as “you” on campus, because this will create an opening for evil forces to take up residence. As a result, the number of people swearing at the photocopier has left it with a demon inside that demands tributes before it will properly function.

While I was reading this, I soon got the feeling that Emily Tesh had a background in academia, and indeed she does; she teaches Latin and Ancient Greek to school kids in Hertfordshire. Taking that real-world experience and applying it to a magic school is genius, and grounds this story in a tangible realism that makes the fantastical elements work so well. It’s also enjoyable to have a book with an older, highly competent female protagonist, if not without her flaws.

I highly recommend this book to both academics and magicians alike.

The Incandescent is an academia novel with a magic school and demon summoning and just so much paperwork. I actually was really enjoying this book for the most part. It was engaging from page one and the concept was really interesting. I will say that it heavily focuses on the academia of a magic school and the behind the scenes paperwork and drudgery of being a teacher which is interesting but makes the book less spooky and magical and more rooted in a sense of logic and rules. My main issue is that it felt like there were multiple, could have been climactic, events that were resolved and then moved past in the span of a chapter throughout the course of the book so that nothing ever felt very serious or important. A major event would happen and catastrophe would be imminent and then they would just solve it and move on to the next month of schoolwork and exams. And this would happen over and over again. By the end I just didn't really care anymore about what was happening in the way that I had hoped. I found the writing and the overall idea interesting and engaging but the execution as a whole just didn't really work. Maybe if it was a series of novellas following various moments at this school over time I might enjoy it better as a concept.

This is a fantastic book, following a teacher at a magical boarding school. I've seen it described as dark academia, but I feel like it's more of a slice of life. Yes, there are demons, but there are also meetings and grading papers and teaching and administrative drudgery, and it's glorious?

I’ve never read a dark academia book from the POV of a professor and let me tell you this better not be the last one. If you like any type of dark academia books with writing equivalent to if we were villains, you are going to love this one.

This was fine, and I appreciate focusing on an older professor in a magical school setting as opposed to the more common focus, but this made me realize I am very, very tired of magical schools altogether. The cute/funny details were just grating, but that's very much a me issue.

I received a digital ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review, and I can't explain how excited I am to recommend this book!

I already knew I would love Emily Tesh's writing from The Greenhollow Duology, and The Incandescent did not disappoint. What I did not expect was an original and beautifully executed take on a magic school novel written entirely from a teacher's perspective, which (magic aside) felt so very relatable to me.

I loved how well rounded Saffy's character is. Everything she does and says and even thinks is so real, it feels like she's someone I've met before. I also love that Tesh's world building is married to her storytelling. She doesn't explain anything, and she doesn't need to. Aside from how much I loved Saffy, my favourite component of this novel is definitely the plot. I spent the entire book clueless as to where it was going like a kid enjoying a fun ride with Tesh firmly in control the whole time.

My only ask is that someone please tell me why Mark did what he did because surely there must be a lot to unpack here.

I will definitely be adding this to my shelf once it's out and recommend to anyone who loves their heroes middle-aged and morally ambiguous, and their villains clever and also morally ambiguous.

So refreshing to read a dark academia story focusing on the teachers - more books about competent, professional adults, please! I loved learning Saffy's story and seeing how it fit in with the current events of the book, and the last third was a twist I did not see coming but made for a satisfying resolution. I think this would be a great book to recommend to fans of Scholomance or possibly Deborah Harkness, though romance was less of an emphasis here. I love that the book features a bi main character, but fans of queer romance may be disappointed that there weren't many interactions between the two women. I found Saffy's musings on the ethics of education particularly insightful, and I think the depiction of the reality of teaching would resonate with a lot of readers in that field as well. I'll definitely recommend this at my library, particularly for readers looking for something different from the typical YA/coming-of-age story.

The Incandescent is a queer fantasy and dark academia novel about magicians in England that will appeal to readers of Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries.

This book was extremely hard for me to rate. At times it was very intriguing and a lot of fun. However, other times I wanted to put it down and never pick it back up again. It chooses the strangest times to do an info dump that causes the pacing to slam to a halt. There were so many chapters where I really did not care about what was happening, and I think it was down to the pacing. Also, the plot was pretty predictable. The beginning was so good! But then after the first big bad fight, it lost me. I really wanted more of Laura and their dynamic, but she’s barely in it. For me, sadly, this was a 2.5/5.