Customer Reviews

Daughter of the Red Deer

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I read this book at first with a bit of apprehension, would it turn into a "men are evil and women are sinless" kind of a story?
I am happy to say it did not. It is a fresh story of love and partnership set in ancient France 14,000 years ago. Alin and Mar learn to see eye to eye in their two seperate views of life. A good yarn followed by the just as good "The Horsemasters", which is set several years later.(the young girl Fali is now the Old One)

An enchanting tale about life in prehistoric France. How tribes interacted and customs change. A love story with a great ending. I enjoyed this book more than Jean Auel's books. Quicker paced, harder to put down.

I read this book in my late teens and found it to be completly spell-binding. My first book that actully held me with pleasure for reading! Note; i do not believe that this book is sutiable for people under 16 years of age. But for us adults, it is wonderfull!

While not nearly as detailed as Jean Auel's Earth's Children, Wolf's Daughter of the Red Deer is a solid read. The characters are well drawn and believable, the world is described enough to give you an idea, but doesn't detail every blade of grass like Auel does. Where Jean Auel's hunters have a complicated hunting ritual more like Catholic Mass with chanting and prayers, Wolf's hunters have a more interesting take with men dressing up in bison hides and being "killed" by others. Likewise, the characters have more personality and emotions and Wolf makes an attempt to keep the language simple and the thoughts "pre-modern" although she does slip a few times. Most of the supporting characters like Jes, Tane, Tor and Mada are likeable but not perfect.

There are humorous moments and a happy ending. Even the "bad guys" have a few redeeming qualities. At times the romance gets a little heavy and the main romance between Mar and Alin is quite predictable. I would have liked to see more prehistoric animals although there is a mammoth hunting scene!

The beginning of the story started off very badly. For one Joan, had to explain everything to the reader instead of incorporating it in the story and letting it unfold naturally. She took several breaks from the story to explain the surroundings or the beliefs of the people, which we heard over and over again like a broken record. Second, when Alin and the girls were kidnapped, their kidnappers were very kind about it and personally as nice as the kidnappers were and as much as Joan described Alin to be a very well developed hunter I would have expected a little more than a fight from Alin and the girls. Plus, to ensure realism to the reader we want real characters and no matter what the reason for the kidnapping, the kidnappers are not going to be nice enough and explain their reasoning before conducting their extraction. It just didn't feel real and also, their was no language barrier...for as far away as the Horse men were from the People of the Red Deer their language barrier was non-existent, which is not at all realistic and a little too convienant. One of the characters also gets injured about mid-story and I was displeased to know that he didn't die...it talked about how his insides were hanging out of his body and he recovered...and well I don't particular care for death but the fact still remains that death is an unavoidable occurance and for Joan to spare it's readers of all unfortunes is a little disapointing because even though it is fiction it should still sound real, at least once upon a time. Even the characters that were supposed to be evil weren't as evil as I know some humans can be...and for a large tribe such as that to not have real enemies within is also a little unbelievable. Generally, the story line was very nice though and the romance was good and Joan actually allowed the reader to experience some suspense before giving Alin to Mar. But even the trials that Mar faced were not that difficult...he seemed to kill the horse with ease and survive the raging, cold river with ease...Where is the real conflict? Towards the end it did seem to unfold itself a little better than the beginning and overall it was a decent story...not a Jean Auel or Sue Harrison novel but it does have potential. I understand this was Joan Wolf's first pre-history fictional novel and the research, as far as I know, was good. I give it 3 stars and recommend this book to those that are running out of good pre-historical fiction books and would like something to pass the time.

I fell in love with this story. The characters are so deep and easy to relate to. It is a wonderful lesson in history and anthropology. Could not put this book down until I had finished it.

I really enjoyed reading this on my Kindle. It's moves at a nice pace and can easily be finished within a week or a weekend for an avid reader.

After reading it, I bought the other books in the series, I didn't enjoy them as much. The timelines advance by a generation or two, so it's hard to figure out the relationship to the characters in this book. However, this would allow the books to be read out of order without losing the plot to the individual stories.

I plan on going back to reread these to see if maybe I just read them too fast in the first place.

I would recommend this as good reading.

Overall this story was quite good.

I felt Joan Wolf maybe took a page out of the whole Roman/Sabine women story and explored it.

While I enjoyed reading it, her attempt to immerse us a bit in the culture/world with the phrasing of "sa" and "na" ended up just annoying me. It is the main reason Horsemasters (set in a similar time period with same phrasing) is just not one of my favorites even though I liked the story even better than this one.

I don't judge books by anything other then did it hold my interest. I know very simple but hey it's me. I could pick it apart but I really liked it. I thought her prespective of prehistoric life was a little far fetched but it's a book. I liked the characters and the setting. If you are looking for a nice beach or travel book this is a good one.