Not quite to the standard of some of the other books.

What a shame.....

I have waited years for this book to come out but have to say I am disappointed. When she is talking about the people and family life it is a good read but it goes on and on about visits to caves and the paintings inside and ends up very repetitive in places. The dust jacket talks about Aylas trials and her and Jondalar growing apart, which all happens in about the last 150 odd pages of a 750 page book. This becomes a cave issue but once the cave resolve what to do the book just finishes. They have only been with the Zelondoni 6 years and that is the end of the book. The original series was going to be a 6 book series and this is book 6, but Ayla is only 26. Maybe Ms Auel plans on adding to the series, I don't know but this is unfinished. If you found the Plains of Passage a bit long and drawn out with all the travel descriptions then you think this is as well.

The first half of the book is hard slog, I recommend doing some net searches on the art she talks about, helps to see it. However the second half of the book I could not put down Auel returned to her fab style of writing. It's worth wading through.