Auel uses her powerful storytelling talents and her thorough understanding of human nature to take us on an amazing journey into the primordial past, re creating the prehistoric world as it truly might have been in this compelling and timeless new epic of the dawn of civilization. It is Jondalar who teaches her the meaning of true friendship and love. Torn between her desire for human companionship and her fear of the unknown Others, she struggles against her deep attraction to the handsome Jondalar.

But none of her experiences prepares her for the emotional turmoil she feels when she rescues a young man the first of the Others she has seen from almost certain death. Sharing a hidden valley with a herd of steppe horses, Ayla finds a unique friendship with animals as vulnerable as herself and ingeniously discovers the complex skills needed to survive skills no Clan member was ever able to master. Driven by her intelligence, her curiosity, and her destiny, she explores where the Clan never dared to travel and encounters a hostile world of awesome mystery, glacial cold, terrifying beasts, and intense loneliness in which survival itself is a constant battle. She is in search of others like herself and in search of love. The second volume of the astonishing Earth’s Children series over 34 million copies sold worldwide In The Valley of Horses, Ayla, the unforgettable hero*ine of The Clan of the Cave Bear, sets out on her own odyssey of discovery away from the nurturing adoptive family and friends of the Clan. First in the acclaimed Earth s Children series 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. But the brutal and proud youth who is destined to become their next leader sees her differences as a threat to his authority. 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. To them, blonde, 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.

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. 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.

This novel of awesome beauty and power is a moving saga about people, relationships, and the boundaries of love.

The mammoth hunters jean auel