The Plains of Passage

Having spent a winter among the Mammoth Hunters, Ayla and Jondalar set out on the long journey west toward his home in France, following the Great Mother River -- the Danube -- across ice-age Europe. Their trek brings them face to face with very different peoples along the river, each with its own customs, suspicions, and, more than once, tempting reasons for the couple to stop traveling. Ayla's gift for taming animals and reading the natural world is tested again as the pair balance the pull of new lives offered along the way against Jondalar's determination to bring her home. The fourth novel in Jean M. Auel's Earth's Children series.