Emily Tesh's The Incandescent Book Review

 The Incandescent 

By Emily Tesh 

Published Year: 2025

Page Count: 394 pages 

Medium Used: Kindle PW 

Genre: Fantasy, Magic, Sorcery, Multiple Planes, Demons, Action, Lesbians, 2025-read. 

Rating: 4.75/5 

This is my first book by the author and I find her prose good, logic sensible and acceptable. This story revolves around a centuries old Magic school, Chetwood, which houses six hundred students learning and practicing magic, teaching staff and other management. The school is carefully warded against demons that are always on the look out to cross over from a parallel demonic plane and possess objects, eat the enormous amount of magic that is here, all concentrated in one place. Among the people that are keeping the school and students secure is the Director of Magic, Sapphire Walden. She is the protagonist of this story. She is a thoughtful, compassionate teacher and a spectacular magician. She has spent all her career learning how to combat demons and has an nth order demon,Phoenix, tethered to her self. The demon resides within her psyche and is at her beck and call. Very few people are aware of this. She is really deadly because of this ability. 

Her four students from the only class she teaches - Nikki the brightest star, Aneeta the well behaved and well learnt, Will the competitor and laid back, Mathias the slow and awkward - sometimes put the school in danger by summoning high order demons which they can't control. Sometimes they save the day by calling the right person on to the scene. And there is a super sexy, super combative marshal, Laura Kenning, who loses her job instead of Walden when the four students summon a big old demon from the demon plane. In a final battle between the demonic plane and mundane world, both Walden and Laura seal off the demons away for a long time,towards the end. What triggers the final fight is Will's uncle, Mark Daburey, who invites demons to enter the school by weakening the watch systems surreptitiously. He is a negative player and I didn't really get why he would do such a thing? He was as much an alumni to the school as Walden but what organization was he working for that would benefit from his act of transigence? And what happens to him after that? Where does he go..is he killed in the fight?? 

I liked the story and felt the character development is flawless. Walden is an extremely competitive and driven woman. A lot of time she spends with teaching and in meetings as the director, so naturally, she has no personal life. She has a wild, brief attraction for Laura before Laura gets sacked. She has a 'friends with benifits' sort of relationship with Mark who later turns to be a black guard. I found a lot of respect and veneration for Walden towards the end.. she has sacrificed a major part of her self for the school. Do read this for sure!! I sincerely hope there is a sequel to this one!