Wish I could remember this author - prehistoric Mills & Boon!

[FouDeFafa]

Evening All, hope you’re having a lovely Saturday.

i used to love a series of books back in my teens that I want to re-read. I’ve forgotten the titles and author and have done a couple of Google
searches but no joy, does anyone have any suggestions please?

Synopsis below - please don’t judge - it’s literary shite but was a ripping good read as I remember!

It’s about a woman who is more
evolutionarily advanced who is adopted by a pre-historic community after being orphaned by an earthquake as a young girl. There’s lots
of stuff about foraging, beliefs, how these communities lived, her being raped and being banished wilither her baby, her struggles to survive alone with baby, slingshots to kill food, caves.

Sounds mad but it was a great read and now I can’t find it. Is it familiar to anyone?

Thanks!

Clan of the Cave Bear, Jean M Auel.

Aaah thank you so much Empress Kitty, that’s exactly the series. Brilliant. I’m off to download it now, really good as I remember. Thanks!

Yep. That’s it. Don’t bother with the very last one though - utter shite.

Yes, I got the impression she was bored by the time she wrote the last one. Loads of repetition & a very dull ending. I loved the series as a teenager though.

It was written something like 20 years after the main series, partly due to fan pressure. She shouldn’t have bothered.

I really loved it as a teenager too, but haven’t read it since. I‘m going to download the whole
serieS and listen again now, hooray, thank you. Will approach the final book with caution!

I loved this as a teen too. As per previous posters I was soooo disappointed with the last book. It was unbelievably dull with a terrible ending. Can’t believe I persevered and finished it tbh!

I loved the first few. By the time it got to The Shelters of Stone, I couldn't be bothered anymore, the books are just so bloody long. I think a lot of the assumptions have been debunked in the last couple of decades, especially around Neanderthals, whom Auel depicts as brutish and ignorant.

I increasingly found Ayla more and more irritating. She's blonde and beautiful (I think played by Daryl Hannah in a film version) and so fucking clever that she's made several major inventions by the end of the first book, tamed wild animals etc. I wonder if the character of Ayla was meant to be a metaphor or an allegory or something for human evolution rather than taken seriously as one character.

I don't think I could go back to them now, I'd end up chucking the book across the room.

I’ll be interested to see how I react to a re-read through a 2026 lens @Mochudubh. Loved this series 30 years ago but you make a fair point I think. See also Grease - I still love it but a recent re-watch put things in a whole different light!