Demons, Blood Magic, and a Mystery Worth Solving: A Review of When Shadows Burn by Vanessa Le
- 3 days ago
- 5 min read
Author: Vanessa Le
Publisher: Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group
Rating: 3.5★
Content warnings: Blood, violence, demon fighting, grief over the death of a sibling, illness
"A demon exorcism university sounds like everything. And honestly? The concept really is that good. The execution just needs to catch up."
Book Review at a Glance
Rating: 3.5★
What it's about: A YA dark academia fantasy about two slayers navigating a university plagued by demons, a murder mystery, and the dangerous gray area between the school's rules and what it actually takes to survive.
Why I liked it: The blood magic system is genuinely inventive, and the murder mystery at the center of the story kept me hooked. When this book is working, it's a lot of fun.
The romance: Marketed as a slow burn, and the friends-to-lovers foundation is there, but both leads are too consumed by their own separate storylines for anything to actually spark yet.
Good for readers who enjoy: Dark academia fantasy, demon lore, dual POV stories, and murder mysteries with a magical twist.
When Shadows Burn by Vanessa Le | A YA Dark Academia Fantasy Review
When I saw a book pitched around a demon exorcism university, I was immediately in. That premise is doing a lot of heavy lifting right from the jump, and to Vanessa Le's credit, it delivers on the core concept. When Shadows Burn is the first in a YA dark academia fantasy duology, following two students at Phenbridge University in a world where demons are a very real and very dangerous problem.
Song Sarna is the top slayer in her class, attending on scholarship and determined to earn her Doctorate of Exorcism. Kiet Sren was the best caller of his class before he dropped out to open his own uncredited agency, hunting for the group responsible for his brother's death. Their paths collide in ways that are equal parts tense and messy, and that tension is genuinely one of the book's strongest assets.
The Magic System: Points for Creativity
The blood magic concept here is one of the things I enjoyed most. Slayers draw on their own blood to fight, which means there are real, finite stakes to every encounter. Use too much, and the consequences are severe. That kind of built-in cost makes the action feel meaningful in a way that a lot of fantasy magic systems don't bother with. I liked that Song had to actually think strategically about how much she used, rather than just blasting her way through every problem.
The caller-and-slayer dynamic is also interesting. There's a partnership structure implied here that has a lot of potential. You had to trust your caller to hold the demon, and the caller had to trust the slayer with their life.
Where the World-Building Falls Short
Here's where I wish the book had done more work: the demons themselves. We learn they exist, we learn they're dangerous, and we fight some of them. But where do they come from? Why are they here? What are the actual rules of this world? Those questions never really get answered, and after a while, the absence starts to nag at you.
The science behind the blood genes, the biological trait that determines who can be a slayer or caller, also gets glossed over. I don't need a full lecture, but a little more grounding would have gone a long way. When you're building a world as interesting as this one, I want to understand it better.
Kiet: The More Fully Realized Half
Most of the book unfolds through Kiet's POV, and I have mixed feelings about that. On one hand, he's genuinely relatable. You understand why he's driven, why he's stubborn, and why he made the choices he made. On the other hand, there were stretches where I wanted to skip ahead because he kept circling back to the same grievances about his family, over and over, without pushing the story forward. A little editing of those moments would have tightened things up considerably.
Still, Kiet carries the book. His voice is engaging, and his storyline connecting to his brother's death gives the murder mystery element real emotional stakes.
Song: Left in the Background
Song is the character I came away most frustrated by, and not because she's bad. She's just underdeveloped. Her motivation is clear: be the best, earn her degree, prove she belongs. But that's about all we get. She felt distant from the reader in a way that Kiet didn't, and her POV chapters often felt like they were there to move plot pieces around rather than to deepen her as a person.
I kept getting the sense that she existed in this story largely to show how another character, Heiro, falls. That's a tough role to be stuck in when you're supposed to be one of the two leads. I hope the second book gives her more room to breathe, because there's a more interesting character underneath the surface.
The Romance: Slow Burn in Name Only
The marketing on this one leans into the slow burn romance between Song and Kiet, and I can see the bones of what Le was going for. The setup is there for a friends-to-lovers arc, and the push-pull of two people who have their own lives outside of the agency they run but keep getting pulled into each other's orbit has real potential.
The problem is that both characters are too buried in their own separate storylines for the romance to actually develop. Kiet's chapters are almost entirely focused on the mystery of his brother's death and his complicated hatred of both his family and Phenbridge. Song's chapters are wrapped up in her academics, her fear of failing her father, and managing her illness. Those are all valid, interesting character threads. But they don't leave much room for Song and Kiet to actually build something together.
If you're picking this up primarily for the romance, temper your expectations. This reads more like the setup for a romance than a romance itself. The slow burn might pay off in book two, but in book one, it's mostly just... slow.
The Murder Mystery: This Is Why You Pick It Up
Despite my frustrations, the murder mystery thread is genuinely engaging. It's the part of the book that kept me reading through the slower stretches, and it's what makes this feel like more than a standard dark academia setup. If you're picking this up specifically for the mystery-with-demons element, you won't be disappointed.
Final Thoughts
When Shadows Burn is a solid debut entry in a duology with a lot of promise. The concept is great, the blood magic is inventive, and the murder mystery gives the story real momentum. What it needs in the sequel is more world-building depth, a stronger focus on Song as a fully realized protagonist, and room for the romance to actually become a romance. If you're looking for a YA dark academia read with demons, blood magic, and a murder mystery to untangle, this is worth your time. Just go in knowing it's setting the stage for something bigger.
Thank you to Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group for an eARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
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