The Incandescent by Emily Tesh – Review

Published: May 13, 2025

Publisher: Tor Books

Series: N/A

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 416 (Hardcover)

My Rating: 5 Stars

Synopsis:
Naomi Novik’s Scholomance series meets Plain Bad Heroines in this sapphic dark academia fantasy by instant national and international bestselling author Emily Tesh, winner of the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards.

“Look at you, eating magic like you’re one of us.”

Doctor Walden is the Director of Magic at Chetwood Academy and one of the most powerful magicians in England. Her days consist of meetings, teaching A-Level Invocation to four talented, chaotic sixth formers, more meetings, and securing the school’s boundaries from demonic incursions.

Walden is good at her job―no, Walden is great at her job. But demons are masters of manipulation. It’s her responsibility to keep her school with its six hundred students and centuries-old legacy safe. And it’s possible the entity Walden most needs to keep her school safe from―is herself.

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Dare I say this might be my favorite magic school book of 2025? The Incandescent is the magic school book us adults have been waiting for – it’s told from the perspective of one of the school administrators who also happens to be teaching an A-Level class on demon summoning (a bit like an AP class for us American folk). Even fancy private schools have budgeting issues and staff shortages apparently! 

Dr. Saffy Walden is constantly neck deep in paperwork, has meetings at odd hours (including on Sundays), must up-keep Chetwood Academy’s magical wards, and also teach four talented sixth formers Invocation. She doesn’t have time for much outside of work and seems to be Dr. Walden even on her off hours rather than simply Sapphi. Children with magical ability are constantly getting into mischief and proving their ingenuity by bribing imps to inhabit smoke detectors, sneaking illegal electronics into the school, and summoning high order demons that nearly destroy the school. These same children (specifically the demon summoning ones) constantly keep Dr. Walden on her toes and unfortunately, constantly interacting with the Chief Marshal, Laura Kenning. Marshal Kenning and Dr. Walden aren’t exactly friends to begin with but the two begin to find a mutual respect and a mutual attraction as events force them together.

Possibly the most interesting thing about The Incandescent is that an event that would typically be the dramatic climax of a book occurs right around the halfway point. That was quite the plot choice and I wasn’t sure where the story would go from that point onward. I thought the plot couldn’t possibly get more interesting after that absolute banger of a showdown, but it did. Twice. There are somehow two more very exciting big plot moments and the first one changes the course of things yet again. I’m keeping this vague so as to not spoil things, but they’re all demon related and Saffy’s doctorate project – a phoenix tattoo that contains a bound high level demon – is um, highly involved.

The Incandescent is an excellent magical school story and seems to delight in thumbing its nose at several criticisms of the Harry Potter books that I’ve seen over the years. Chetwood Academy has a real safety program, the administrators are keeping the kids out of danger (mostly), and they’re also taught useful subjects like mathematics, science, and English alongside the magic courses. This book also takes a brief look at things like elitism, privilege, and wealth at a prestigious private school and how having some or all of those things can change the outcome of a situation. Overall, this was a highly entertaining book with characters that I absolutely loved. Dr. Walden was simply excellent and I loved having a POV chapter from a woman in her late thirties trying to find love while also working herself to death at a job where most would say her talents are wasted. I thought the magic was cool and fairly well thought out and it also blended well into the modern world. I’m hoping to read more by Emily Tesh in the future and will be adding her backlist to my TBR too!