The mammoth hunters

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