I'm a big fan of these Avon Bard Latin American literature bks. I've never read one that I didn't like. This one, b/c it's based on anthropological research into extinct "shell-mound people" is quite different from any of the other bks I've read in the series. It's also distinguished as being possibly the only one of the Bard bks that I've found written by a woman.

At 1st, reading this was slow-going for me. Since the style of the writing was an attempt to be as accurately as possible based on research into a people long-since gone, this writing was appropriately stunted in its ideas. But Ribeiro does a good job of evoking this world & certainly managed to engage me in the lives of the characters. Her comparison between the 2 main tribes represented was particularly fascinating - similarly effective to me as was the movie "Quest for Fire". & there was plenty of dramatic action to suck in any reader of novels looking for thrills. ( )