Jean M. Auel Books

The third novel in the Earth's Children series, Jean M. Auel's internationally bestselling epic of life 25,000 years ago when two kinds of human beings, Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon, shared the earth. Leaving the valley of horses with Jondalar, the handsome man she has nursed back to health and come to love, Ayla embarks on a journey that will lead her to the Mamutoi, the Mammoth Hunters, who are Others like her. As she settles into this new life among a people at first strange and disturbingly different, soon Ayla begins to feel at home, finally leaving her painful memories of the Clan behind and finding female friends. Yet Ayla is also drawn to Ranec, the dark-skinned, magnetic master-carver of ivory. Ayla must choose: remain with Ranec and the Mamutoi, or follow Jondalar into the unknown . . . Set 25,000 years in the past, yet utterly relatable today, The Mammoth Hunters is an epic tale of love, identity and the struggle to survive, rich in detail of language, culture, myth and ritual. Praise for Jean M. Auel 'Beautiful, exciting, imaginative' New York Times 'A major bestseller . . . A remarkable work of imagination' Daily Express

Orphaned Ayla and wandering Jondalar search for a place to call home.

This novel of awesome beauty and power is a moving saga about people, relationships, and the boundaries of love. Through Jean M. Auel's magnificent storytelling we are taken back to the dawn of modern humans, and with a girl named Ayla we are swept up in the harsh and beautiful Ice Age world they shared with the ones who called themselves the Clan of the Cave Bear . A natural disaster leaves the young girl wandering alone in an unfamiliar and dangerous land until she is found by a woman of the Clan, people very different from her own kind. To them, blond, blue-eyed Ayla looks peculiar and ugly--she is one of the Others, those who have moved into their ancient homeland; but Iza cannot leave the girl to die and takes her with them. Iza and Creb, the old Mog-ur, grow to love her, and as Ayla learns the ways of the Clan and Iza's way of healing, most come to accept her. But the brutal and proud youth who is destined to become their next leader sees her differences as a threat to his authority. He develops a deep and abiding hatred for the strange girl of the Others who lives in their midst, and is determined to get his revenge.

Forced to leave the Clan and her young son, Ayla sets out alone to travel the frigid steppes until she finds the valley of horses. Unable to find people like herself, the Cro-Magnons, she settles there and seeks friendship elsewhere. First she adopts a young filly, then a wounded lion cub. But far to the west, two young Cro-Magnon brothers have begun a journey. One of them is Jondalar, whose destiny is bound inextricably with Ayla's. Jean Auel's imaginative reconstruction of pre-historic life, rich in detail of language, culture, myth and ritual, has become a set text in schools and colleges around the world.

1st edition, 1st printing hardcover in fine condition with a fine (as new) dust jacket, available for shipping from our UK warehouse.

THE LAND OF PAINTED CAVES concludes the story of Ayla, her mate Jondalar, and their little daughter, Jonayla, taking readers on a journey of discovery and adventure as Ayla struggles to find a balance between her duties as a new mother and her training to become a Zelandoni - one of the Ninth Cave community's spiritual leaders and healers. Once again, Jean Auel combines her brilliant narrative skills and appealing characters with a remarkable re-creation of the way life was lived thousands of years ago, rendering the terrain, dwelling places, longings, beliefs, creativity and daily lives of Ice Age Europeans as real to the reader as today's news.