jacey | Booklog 46/2025: Emily Tesh: The Incandescent

Narrated by Zara Ramm
This is a school of magic story from the point of view of the teachers, in particular one teacher. Dr Saffy Walden (Sapphire, not Saffron) is the director of magic at Chetwood School. She's largely administrative, responsible for the magical safety of the ancient school and its 600 students, though she does teach A-Level invocation to four sixth formers, which includes protecting them from their own foolishness on occasions. Saffy is brilliant at her job and one of the most talented academic magicians, but demons are masters of manipulation and after an incident in which she calls on its power to save a couple of foolish students from a Higher Demon, Saffy's Phoenix demon might not be bound as tightly as it should be.

I listened to this largely because I really like Zara Ramm, the narrator (who usually reads all the St Mary's books) and I was right, the narration is excellent. The story starts off slow-burn but picks up dramatically. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing.