| Plot Summary of Valley of the Horses |
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"The second novel in the Earth's Children series begins where "The Clan of the Cave Bear" left off. Ayla has been exiled by the clan, the neanderthals who have raised her, and the only family that she has ever known. She eventually settles in a valley, where she makes friends with a horse, a wolf, and a lion cub. However, she is lonely and yearns for human companionship. Meanwhile, a handsome cro-magnan named Jondalar, and his brother have embarked on a journey across prehistoric europe, a kind of rite of passage. Ayla comes across Jondalar after a violent attack that leaves his brother dead and him fatally wounded. Ayla nurses Jondalar back to health, and the two bond. But their relationship doesn't come easy. They don't speak the same language initially, and they must overcome Jondalar's prejudice against the clan that raised Ayla, and Ayla's fears about sex that have arisen after her rape in "Clan of the Cave Bear"."
fran laniado, Resident Scholar
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"After becoming an outcast from the Neanderthal clan, Ayla begins her search for her own kind, but arrives in a lush valley, and finding all the resources she needs decides to stay. Her trials and struggles included such discoveries as learning a simple way of creating fire and raising wild animals, specifically a baby horse and an injured lion cub, to be her friends. In a parallel story line the Cro-Magnon Jondalar begins a journey with his brother, but they are better prepared for most of the extremes and struggles that they overcome. Their stories converge as Jondalar is attacked after his brother is killed, coincidently by the Lion that Ayla raised from a cub. She rescues Jondalar and during his recuperation they struggle to teach and learn from each other.They both admire each other and eventually reveal deep feelings of love, which they finally consumate their passion in a sensitively written rite of passage that had been denied to Ayla by the male dominated society of her adopted clan family. "
mmacy, Resident Scholar
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