The Valley of Horses

The book starts off from the events at the end of The Clan of the Cave Bear detailing the life of a young Cro-Magnon woman named Ayla who has just been exiled from the Clan, the band of Neanderthals who had raised her from early childhood. Ayla now searches for her own people, whom the Clan refer to as "the Others". After being banished by the Clan, a group of Neanderthals, who have taken in and raised her as one of her own, Ayla is now forced to follow her adopted mother's advice to go in search of her own people. That is easier said than done however, in the sparsely populated steppes of what is now the Ukraine, Ayla searches for months without finding another soul. As the summer wears on, she has to make a difficult decision: continue the search and hope she'll find people or settle somewhere and prepare for a harsh winter alone.