The Land of Painted Caves

Earth's Children, Book 6

By: Jean M. Auel

Narrated by: Sandra Burr

Length: 34 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's summary

Ayla, one of the most remarkable and beloved heroines in contemporary fiction, continues to explore the world and the people around her with curiosity, insight, and, above all, courage.

As the story opens, Ayla, Jondalar, and their infant daughter, Jonayla, are living with the Zelandonii in the Ninth Cave - a shelter of stone. Ayla has been chosen as an acolyte and has embarked on the arduous task of training to become a spiritual leader. The wisdom that Ayla gained from her struggles as an orphaned child, alone in a hostile environment, strengthen her as she moves closer to leadership of the Zelandonia.

Whatever the obstacles, Ayla’s inventive spirit produces new ways to lessen the difficulties of daily life: searching for wild edibles to make delicious meals, experimenting with techniques to ease the long journeys the Zelandoni must take, honing her skills as a healer and a leader. And then, there are the Sacred Caves, the caves that Ayla’s mentor - the Donier, the First of the Zelandonia - takes her to see. These caves are filled with remarkable art - paintings of mammoths, lions, aurochs, rhinoceros, reindeer, bison, bear. The powerful, mystical aura within these caves sometimes overwhelms Ayla and the rituals of initiation bring her close to death. But through those rituals, Ayla gains A Gift of Knowledge so important that it will change the world.

Spellbinding drama, meticulous research, fascinating detail, and superb narrative skill combine to make The Land of Painted Caves a captivating, utterly believable creation of a long ago civilization that serves as an astonishing end to this beloved saga.

Listen to more in the Earth's Children series.

©2011 Jean M. Auel (P)2011 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

End of a saga

A couple character actions broke character in order to advance the story. It's not anything we haven't seen done before and it can be excused. Thank you miss Aurl and Ms Burr for a wonderful journey.

passion

I would like to see another book by Auel. her work is amazing and enticing to read more Thank You

loved it

loved it. great story. enjoyed every minute of this captivating story. a joy to listen to.

Not impressed

This book felt forced. It seems that the author had to make up unnecessary story lines to wrap up loose threads in some places but left others hanging. Also, the amount of repeated information through out this book made it hard to get through. I understand that there will be carry over from each book but this book kept repeating itself.

The amount of time spent talking about the cave paintings and the aithors interpretation of the time period felt like a lecture or book report. it was redundant from cave to cave and felt like filler.

I love this series but would recommend just reading the first 5 books and stopping. This one was not necessary.

Best collection of books!

Author, Jean Auel seems to have done so much to get accurate details behind prehistoric tools, cooking utensils, and

Wonderful story!

My only wish for this work is that there were yet another book to follow it… But I understand all stories have to end sometime. This is one of my favorite in the six book series, and I would highly recommend it to anyone even without the books preceding it. The characters are so well drawn and compelling, and the description of primeval Europe is fascinating. I would recommend the entire series to anyone.

Good ending to a great adventure

the beautiful description of the lands and people of the time make a great ending to a beautiful story.

Always a good read!!

I've been reading this book series since I was a pre-teen when I found "Valley of Horses" at a thrift store. This finale in the series does not disappoint!! Auel does so good telling us what happened to Ayla, Jondalar and the rest in the years following "Shelters of Stone", you even get to meet some old friends. I love this book and I Love this series!!

Repeated facts but still good.

I love this series, however this book repeated facts multiple times that were in the book.

Voice narrative was bad

The Russian voice for Ayla was not needed, it wasn’t done in the first book so why add it to the others. So distracting.