Ayla finally meets the oh-so-mysterious Others and faces prejudice because of her connections to the 'flatheads'. There's a misunderstanding mistakenly construed as a love triangle. That's about it.

Some of the deeper issues raised in the first book are back full force, after having been shoved aside because we only had two characters to deal with in book 2.

Romance fans. I feel that at this point in the series, Auel is losing all but the most hardy historical fiction fans.

I can't help but be enchanted by the story. There are some incredibly touching moments in this book, which is one of my favorite of the series. If anyone does not feel at the least a tug at the heart at what happens to Rydag (no spoilers!) they have no heart. Maybe that's an exaggeration. The boy was my favorite of all the characters, though the colorful bunch of Mamutoi do their job well in welcoming Ayla into a confusing, rowdy, and above all else loud world of the 'verbalizers'.

The sex scenes. I'm not against them by any means, but no matter how many different euphemisms she comes up with, once you're read one of Auel's love scenes, you've read them all.

Read the next one, and the next one, and the next one...

Despite the 300 page resolution to the aforementioned "triangle" (really...one can only watch two lovers being stubborn for so long...300 is past that limit), the ending leaves you feeling that all is right with the world and Ayla and Jondalar (who never gets nicknamed Jon despite my deepest wishes to stop having to read his name) are off on another adventure.

Still really likes to show all her research. Though at this point we do really depart from fantasy/historical fiction and delve into the realm of romance and erotica. I don't know how many pages of sex scenes you get before getting labeled in an "adult" genre, but I'm guessing it's only one more than Auel has.

Anyone's who's read the first two will just HAVE to find out what happenes when Ayla meets the Others.

Though this is one of my favorite of the series, I believe it's in the "triangle" that the whole shebang loses steam.

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Created May 23, 2007 at 9:11pm • Submit your own review...