An evil force may be rising, a student came back from summer break sporting antlers, a parent sends in cupcakes enchanted with toxic-positivity messaging--and it's only the first day of school. Tanya Huff (Direct Descendant) winks at the conventions of magical school stories in the clever, tongue-in-cheek fantasy novel Saved by the Spell.
Abby Bellman teaches at the High School for the Magical Arts's Canadian campus. She's gearing up for a new year when a fluke floor collapse causes mayhem at a school assembly. Next, a magical portal in a platter of scrambled eggs lets in a pack of poisonous sprites. The danger seems targeted at a particularly brave freshman named Bex, who has two gifted yet awkward best friends. Abby knows those signs. Bex is a destined hero, which means lurking somewhere is a destined villain. Now Abby has to figure out who the villain is, partly for the safety of the world, but mostly because Bex is in her homeroom. (She half suspects a senior girl who's been described as "a little too willing to toss a virgin into a volcano.") Abby must face down magical attacks, an anti-magic protest on school grounds, and the adolescent sense of humor if her students and her sanity are to survive.
Huff makes the chosen one trope new again by building its trappings into the acknowledged rules of her world. Fans of Emily Tesh's The Incandescent will find a similar concept here, delivered in a fast, snappy, and very funny package. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads