Ruins

Ruins by Lily Brooks-Dalton follows Professor Ember Agni, a brilliant archeologist whose career and marriage are crumbling. For over a decade, she has been obsessed with finding a lost empire that the rest of the academic world dismisses as a myth. Just as she is losing hope, a former student sends a message about a mysterious artifact that could prove her theories right and rewrite human history.

Driven by a need for vindication, Ember leaves everything behind to trek into an untouched wilderness. This journey becomes an epic odyssey where she must battle the limits of her own endurance and the skepticism of her peers. As she unearths the secrets of a dead civilization, she is forced to face the wreckage of her own life. Ultimately, Ember must decide if her thirst for discovery is worth the potential destruction of her future and what kind of world she truly wants to belong to.