A dark academia fantasy where demons prowl, magic demands its price, and quiet strength becomes the ultimate power
Emily Tesh treats language like a sorcerer treats spells in a spellbook, with reverence, precision, and a touch of mischief. Her prose builds atmosphere like brushstrokes on a canvas, layering intention, wit, tone, and texture. Every book I have read by her: Silver in the Wood, Drowned Country, Some Desperate Glory, and now The Incandescent—is a vitally different work. But every story still burns with the same emotional intensity, beauty, and human truths. I am realizing that this is simply the language Tesh speaks.
The Incandescent, Tesh’s newest release, has a heroine in Dr. Saffy Walden who possesses a deep well of inner strength, much like her previous heroine, Kyr, from Some Desperate Glory. Dr. Saffy Walden works as the mistress of Chetwood Academy. This private and costly boarding school offers a magical education to those youths who are both blessed and cursed with being sensitive to magic, a proverbial sword of Damocles. This sensitivity brings with it the power to use ritual magic, but also to be sought out by demons. The demons, hungry to prey upon the children both physically and metaphorically, are kept at bay by complicated rituals, hard-fought for knowledge, and a constantly vigilant Saffy. Every day, she stands on the front lines against this swirling chaos, asserting her determination with a steadfast “No.” Saffy is genuinely one of a kind.
”Look at you, eating magic like you’re one of us.
The Incandescent is also a dark academia story akin to Scholomance by Naomi Novak. Both stories share many common elements, including a boarding school, killer monsters, and themes of power and magic. However, where it differs significantly is that Scholomance always felt like a much bigger world than the first book. In contrast, The Incandescent seems like it was written as one would peep through a keyhole. The view is spectacular, but it’s only a small part of a much larger, expansive world.
It is the same with Saffy’s story.
El from Scholomance is a growing and changing character through her character arc. Even in the first novel, she undergoes significant changes. Saffy, on the other hand, is much more secure with who she is and what she needs to do. That is not to say that she has not suffered, and she is not carrying the weight of that childhood suffering like rounded worry stones in her pocket. But the stones are known to her, and smoothed like river rocks through the years of her holding them. But both stories feature loss as a central plot point: the loss of innocence and the loss of loved ones. Both characters must step up and either save themselves or others. El is just winging it while Saffy has this deep confidence and knowledge she draws upon. They are both similar and different from each other, and I adored both stories.
The Incandescent is a story about strength—not the kind that shouts, but the kind that endures. While Scholomance explores the journey of discovering power, The Incandescent focuses on the courage required to bear that power’s weight. In Emily Tesh’s skilled hands, even pain glimmers. Please read it, and remember what it means to hold the line.
