The Incandescent

Hugo and World Fantasy Award winner Tesh (Some Desperate Glory) puts a fresh spin on dark academia by focusing on school administrators, faculty, and staff. Dr. Sapphire “Saffy” Walden, director of magic at Chetwood School (and an alumna herself), spends her 16-hour workdays managing one crisis after the next. In between, she teaches the Year Seven arcane safety course and maintains the thaumic engines that keep the school from collapsing “out of mundane reality altogether and disappear[ing] into the demonic plane, taking six hundred children with it.” Walden doesn’t have time to fight with the school’s chief marshal Laura Kenning, a “butch avenging angel” in charge of magical security, over the inherent risks of her star pupil’s ability to summon demons. When said pupil summons an 11th-order archdemon, however, the women must put aside their differences to address the threat. Defeating the beast forces Walden to confront her own demons (real and figurative) and, what’s more galling, acknowledge that Kenning may have a point. Focusing on the administrators is a fresh entryway into a popular genre, and “awful nerd with a superiority complex” Walden makes for a fascinating and often humorous narrator. Fans of Naomi Novik’s Scholomance series won’t want to miss this thoughtful exploration of privilege, power, and private school education. Agent: Kurestin Armada, Root Literary. (May)