Book Review: "The Ruins Beneath Us" is a Magical Fairy Tale That Will Leave You Guessing Until the End

Sasha E. Sloan’s The Ruins Beneath Us is a dynamic exploration of family secrets, a hidden birthright, and an epic tale of magical discovery.

Lyria is an elf in a world that doesn’t like magic, nor does it accept elves. Living alone in the Ironwoods with her mother, Lyria is learning to be a healer through her mom’s teachings, and no other interaction. 

When her mom leaves her alone for a couple of weeks, despite promises to her parental unit to stay hidden, Lyria is overcome with a desire to help a man who has been attacked by a monster nearby. Saving his life and nursing him back to health, Lyria meets Finn and they form a bond. Time passes and when Finn leaves, she is back to her isolation, until the King’s guards arrive at her doorstep and summon her to the royal palace.

Intrigued by the fact that Finn is a prince, and bored because she has been isolated for so long, Lyria departs with enchantments applied to hide her elf ears, and a hope for a future that is more than just hiding in the woods. 

She is given a job in the hospital where she works under the Head Healer Cygnus and is employed by Queen Davina to create a concoction that will save the kingdom from a disastrous plague that is wreaking havoc on distant villages and the countryside. 

The longer she spends in the palace, the more Lyria’s relationship with Finn develops into a love story. Except, Cygnus suspects there is something to her unique abilities. Sooner than later, Lyria is going to have to trust someone with the truth of her birthright. The only problem for her is can she trust anyone in a palace that is filled with people who have fought a hundred-year war against her people.  

The Ruins Beneath Us is a fascinating book that will not only hook the reader instantly with a delightful lead character such as Lyria, but the narrative places readers in a magical world with a twist. Here magic is outlawed, long standing wars of oppression are carried on in the attempt to equalize everyone (or strip the elves of the Talent), so that no one has magic.

For the first book in a sure-to-be-lengthy series, Sloan has managed to take consistent and often overused themes and elements and polished them to a fine shine of brilliance with her creative and empathetic characters. 

Lyria is the typical lead character in these magical pages. She has been hidden for so long that the only contact she has is with her overprotective mother. Naturally, the moment Lyria meets someone else, in this case Finn, she is off to a whole new world, without thinking about why her mother may have wanted her hidden from the world. 

From the isolation to the king’s court at the castle, Lyria is independent and strong willed. She will defend herself, and while she may question the love that Finn has for her, it’s her ability to fall in love with Finn that makes her so modern in a faraway world. Lyria wants to believe what she has seen and felt with her own experiences, and not the sordid gossip that others tell her about Finn.

Finn is your typical prince. He has the desire to do good, the willingness to change, and leaves enough doubt for Lyria and the readers to question if anything he is saying is genuine. That’s what is essential in this story, because readers need to wonder if anything that comes out of Finn’s mouth is the truth. We don’t know, and since the reader sees the story from Lyria’s view, we can’t know until the climax of the story.

Cygnus is the linchpin to the book. He is the brooding outsider who has a connection to Finn, but also an interest in Lyria. His brutish spirit naturally hides more than what we know at first, and as the story progresses, it’s just as much fun and joy for the reader to see the expanding role that Cygnus has over Lyria.

Once again, Sasha Sloan reminds readers with her talented balance of words and phrases that magical worlds will always be fun to step into, characters should be judged based on their actions and not what others think about them, and that if you have talent, you most definitely should be using it. 

The Ruins Beneath Us is the rare spot of brightness in a literary world that is crowded with stories of elves and wizards. Sloan makes a new world out of well-worn plot devices and themes, and while the story ends for now, there is much life to explore and read in this beautifully written world. 

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