Jean M Auel

This epic sweeps the reader back 25,000 years. Ayla is adopted by a group of Neanderthals. At first she inspires surprise, then wariness and finally acceptance by the Clan. Ayla is cared for by the medicine woman, but makes an enemy of the group's leader, who will do anything to destroy her.

This sequel recounts Ayla's three years of solitude in a cave after being pronounced 'dead' bythe Neanderthal clan who had raised the Cro-Magnon girl as their own. Her story alternates with that of Jondalar, a handsome young man of immense sex appeal who is journeying with his brother because he can't seem to find himself.

Set in Ice Age Europe, Ayla, the horse Whinney, which she tamed, and her lover Jondalar encounter the Mamutoi, a tribe of mammoth hunters, who, because of her control over animals, her healing skills, and the magic firestone she discovers, adopt Ayla into their clan. Ayla finds herself drawn to the Mamutoi master carver Ranec, which makes Jondalar wildly jealous. It isn't until after the great mammoth hunt, in which Ayla's life is threatened, that...

The story of a Cro-Magnon woman orphaned as a child and raised by a group of Neanderthals.