The Incandescent by Emily Tesh

Dark academia story about a magic teacher who teaches demon-summoning in a British boarding school. It's like Harry Potter but from the perspective of the teachers.

Really enjoyed this. Same author as Some Desperate Glory, which I thought was OK but not spectacular. This one is much better. Plot is much tighter and faster than I expected, plenty of demon-summoning and magic fights. There's a very obvious plot twist and then a very un-obvious plot twist. The middle drags a bit but even the slow-paced parts are fun because it delves so much into the details of being essentially a high school teacher/administrator.

I love the setting. Similar to Harry Potter, it's got a prosaic take on magic, making it similar to math/science. You can even major in it!

Dr Walden is a great MC, you really get a sense of who she is and you can feel her love for teaching and magic with every page. The cast size is actually quite small. I do wish Laura got a lot more screentime though. There's a FANTASTIC start to a /u/ relationship in the first act which peters out, but it does come back in the ending. I just wished there was more of it.

Prose is great. No major flaws with the exception of a few cliches.

The biggest stickler: There's a section in the middle where MC (who is bi) gets involved in a casual friends-with-benefits situation with a guy. The romance is horribly tedious (done purposefully so) but that doesn't really make it much better. There's actually plot-relevant reasons for this, but it doesn't make it any easier to tolerate. Just bear in mind the ending is ultimately /u/ again

Overall I really enjoyed it. "Harry Potter but from the perspective of the teacher who is also a lesbian" is a fantastic premise and is all you need to know whether you want to pick it up