The Land of Painted Caves - The wait is finally over - Worldwide publication date 29 March 2011

Jean M. Auel
Hodder & Stoughton Hardcover, RRP $60.00

This in today from Jean Auel's very excited publishers:

Thirty years ago Jean M. Auel started her Earth’s Childrens® series with The Clan of the Cave Bear... now we will publish the sixth, and last, in this longest running and most successful of series. Along the way, records have been broken, astonishing sales figures achieved, and fans numbering in their millions have been gathered:

• Over 50 million copies sold worldwide to date

• The first one million printing of a hardback first edition in the US with The Mammoth Hunters

• 2.3 million copies sold in six months of The Shelters of Stone – the last novel published in 2002


 The Shelters of Stone was Number One in every country in which it was published, including New Zealand

The Land of Painted Caves is the sixth and highly anticipated book in the Earth’s Children® series and will give her readers the finale they have been waiting thirty years for.

After a dislocated and harsh childhood Ayla embarked on an intense learning curve as she journeyed across an inhospitable land to find her own people, and love. She is now training to become a Zelandoni, one of the community’s spiritual leaders and healers. As she struggles to find a balance between her calling and her duties as a new wife and mother, her relationship with Jondalar comes under pressure. She must decide whether following her passions are worth the risk to her relationship.

Once again, Jeal Auel combines her brilliant narrative skills and appealing characters with a remarkable recreation of the way life was lived thousands of years ago. The terrain, dwelling places, longings, beliefs, creativity and daily lives of the Zelandonii are as real to the reader as today’s news. The Land of Painted Caves is a brilliant achievement by one of the world’s most beloved authors.

Jean Auel was married at 18 and by 25 had five children. Then in 1964 at the age of 28, she started college – night courses – whilst working full-time at an electronics firm. Then, in 1977, she had an idea for a short story about a young woman who lived during the Ice Age. A love of reading, an insatiable curiosity and a penchant for research lead to hours with books from the library. This resulted in a long first draft that became, instead, an outline for a six-book series. The Land of Painted Caves is the sixth, and last in that series.

The story so far...



The Clan of the Cave Bear
Adopted by a Neanderthal group, five-year-old Ayla, inspires surprise, then wariness and finally acceptance by the Clan. She looks and acts different but is taken under the wing of medicine woman Iza and wise holy man Creb. As she matures her indomitable personality clashes with future leader Broud and although he does all he can to destroy her, Ayla proves she is a survivor.

The Valley of the Horses
Ayla leave the Clan, and the son fathered by Broud, and sets out alone to find her people – the Others. As she travels she finds refuge and contentment in the Valley of the Horses. Her need for human companionship and love remains unfilled until fate steps in and brings in a stranger, Jondalar, into the valley. Torn between fear and hope, Ayla is carried to an awakening desire that would shape the future of mankind.

The Mammoth Hunters
Leaving the valley of the horses with Jondalar, Ayla embarks on a journey that will lead her to the Matmutoi: the Mammoth Hunters. As she gradually settles into this new life amongst the people at first strange and disturbingly different, Ayla finds herself irresistibly drawn to the magnetic Ranec, their master-carver. Ultimately she is completely to make a fateful choice between the two men.

The Plains of Passage
Ayla and Jondalar leave the Mamutoi and embark on a journey to Jondalar’s home. Making their way through the beautiful, windswept grasslands of Ice Age Europe they encounter a variety of people. Their many innovative skills including taming of a wolf, lion and horses, intrigues some while others fear and avoid them. But Ayla with no memory of her own people, and Jondalar, with a hunger to return to his, are compelled by their own deep drives to continue their trek across the spectacular heart of an unmapped world to find that place they can both call home.

The Shelters of Stone
Ayla and Jondalar reach home: the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonnii, the old stone age settlement in the region known today as south-west France. With much to learn and just as much to teach Ayla is delighted when she meets Zelandoni, the spiritual leader of her ‘new’ Clan. After the rigours of their journey Ayla yearns for a quiet domestic life as Jondalar’s mate and the mother of his children. But her unique spiritual gifts cannot be ignored, and even as she gives birth their eagerly-awaited child, she is coming to accept that she has a greater role to play in the destiny of Zelandonii.