“Doctor Walden is the Director of Magic at Chetwood School 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.”

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I borrowed this on ebook from the library.

Thoughts: I really enjoyed this a lot. The characters are intriguing as is the world. This is very much a “day in the life of” type of story with some fantastic elements thrown in. Previous to reading this I also read Tesh’s Greenhollow Duology and “Some Desperate Glory” and absolutely loved all of those books. I didn’t love this book quite as much because it feels a bit slow at parts.

Doctor Walden is the Director of Magic at Chetwood school. She is an incredibly powerful magician but loves teaching and ends up wrapped up in a lot of administrative work. When a top student accidentally causes a demon incursion, it is up to Walden to save the school. However, Walden has secrets of her own, and who is going to protect her from herself?

This was very well done, and much of the book is about a very sought after and highly capable woman trying to make her extremely busy life work day to day. She has a lot of responsibilities in teaching, administration, and magical security and works very long days. However, even she has her limits, and when she hits them she is intrigued by the woman who steps up to support her.

I loved the world here; this has very dark academia vibes. There is magic in this world and demons, the demons like to infest technology and are drawn to other magic which makes powerful magic school like Chetwood tricky to secure. I loved the characters as well; they are all complex and intriguing to read about.

The only slight weakness for me was that the day to day vibe of the book got a bit slow at points. Don’t get me wrong, there are amazing and fantastical things that happen in this book. However, a lot of this is about Walden getting through each busy day without a disaster, and while that was part of the point of the story, it did get slightly repetitive. There is definitely a theme of work-life balance throughout. Walden loves her job, but it is her life. She doesn’t even really realize that maybe there should be more to her life than her job until things get to a breaking point.

This was very well written and very engaging. Tesh is definitely a go-to author for me and writes books that are entertaining, intriguing, emotionally engaging, and thoughtful.

My Summary (4.5/5): Overall I really enjoyed this book a lot. This is the day to day life story of an accomplished and magically powerful woman interspersed with some rather intense demonic incursions. The tone is witty and practical. There are some parts that feel a bit slow compared to the rest of the story, but I really did love every aspect of this book. I am looking forward to the next story from Tesh.

Review – The Incandescent by Emily Tesh (4.5/5 stars)

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