Originally Posted by dakotamaid
Sounds good, what is the basic story line?
* Culture
* Books
* Fiction
Jean M Auel announces final Earth's Children novel
The last novel in Jean M Auel's epic prehistoric series, The Land of Painted Caves, will be published in March 2011
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* Alison Flood
* guardian.co.uk, Friday 28 May 2010 15.32 BST
* Article history
mammoth Jean M Auel's Ice Age saga has so far sold more than 45 million copies around the world. Photograph: Corbis
Thirty-one years after readers first embarked on Jean M Auel's epic prehistoric Earth's Children series, the author is finally bringing it to a conclusion.
The sixth and last novel in Auel's series about Ice Age humans Ayla and Jondalar will be published on 29 March next year, it was announced yesterday. Called The Land of Painted Caves, the novel will see Ayla struggling "to find a balance between her duties as a new mother and her training to become a Zelandoni – one of the Ninth Cave community's spiritual leaders and healers", according to UK publisher Hodder & Stoughton.
The Oregon-based Auel began her series in 1980 with The Clan of the Cave Bear, in which Ayla was raised by Neanderthals following the death of her parents. She continued Ayla's story with The Valley of Horses and The Mammoth Hunters – the first hardback book with an initial print run of more than one million copies, said its publisher – The Plains of Passage and fifth novel The Shelters of Stone in 2002. The books have sold more than 45 million copies around the world, according to Hodder.
Auel's long-term agent Jean Naggar said The Land of Painted Caves was "a triumph and a wonderful read"; her UK editor at Hodder Sue Fletcher said the author had "a unique ability to transport her readers to other worlds". Both promised that the publication of the final novel next year would be an "international extravaganza".