People of the Sea
A Novel of North America's Forgotten Past
-
-
4.9 • 10 Ratings
-
-
- $11.99
-
- $11.99
Publisher Description
Twelve thousand years ago, the glaciers of the Sierra Nevada were melting, destroying the habitat of the mastodons and creating the rich land that would become California. The coastal people struggle to understand the changing world around them: their seer Sunchaser has lost his way to the Spirit World, and mammoths continue to disappear.
When a beautiful woman arrives, fleeing from her abusive husband, the people know what they must do--for if the Spirits are already taking the animals away, what will happen if they shelter a stranger?
Now Sunchaser must make a choice--between the woman he loves and the preservation of his people's world.
New York Times and USA Today Bestselling authors and award-winning archaeologists W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O'Neal Gear bring North America's Forgotten Past to brilliant life in People of the Sea.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
As they have in past works ( People of the River ; People of the Earth ), the Gears illuminate American prehistory by focusing on a personal story. Here, the setting is coastal California 12,000 years ago. Melting glaciers are causing the waters to rise, the huge animals that once populated the area are disappearing and the human inhabitants have to learn to adapt to the changes. Sunchaser the Dreamer, powerful spiritual leader of the People of the Sea, is tormented by his inability to explain or correct recent adverse events, including disease and the disappearance of food sources, when a strange woman wanders into his shelter. Kestrel is pregnant by her lover and, pursued by her vicious husband, has fled from her native inland marshes toward the sea, hoping to find a home among her lover's people, the Otter Clan. Kestrel and Sunchaser fall in love, and together they make their way to the Otter Clan village, whose residents are on the verge of falling under the dangerous influence of an unscrupulous Dreamer, Catchstraw, whose desperate search for power threatens everyone. The Gears, integrating a tremendous amount of natural and anthropological research into a satisfactory narrative, have again produced a vivid and fascinating portrait of early human life in America.
