The Beneath is the latest offering from English author of The Small Blue Thing trilogy S.C. Ransom. The Beneath is written with a similar audience in mind but it is in a much more sinister vein.

The network of tunnels underneath New York has been widely immortalised and I think I first fell in love with the societies that form in under city tunnels in the TV series Beauty and The Beast of the late 1980′s. The Beneath has a similar premise but is set half a world away.

In the tunnels under London, far below the tunnels used for the Underground, lives a community that has survived for hundreds of years. Their leader is the Farmer and he is the only one who can control the Crop, a vicious beast used to keep the community in their designated areas. The community began with the outcasts of society and survived the centuries with reproduction, as the generations passed the inhabitants came to know only the teachings of the community, especially as it related to the world Above.

Lily is a London teenager living an isolated life and struggling with bullies at school. She had an average life up until not too long ago when scandal rocked her family, leaving her living with an ex-nanny while her family are half a world away.

One afternoon as she waits on the platform for her Tube train she is confronted with the sight of a girl running down the track in front of the train, trying to outrun it. Without a second thought Lily ends up leaning into the track to pull her to safety with seconds to spare – and that was the moment Lily’s life took a dramatic turn.