Raven's Choice

What possible link could Mark Hayek, an introverted twenty-first century research scientist, have to Raven, a young woman who lived during the late Pleistocene? It has everything to do with an encounter between a band of Early Modern Humans and a group of Neanderthals intent on hunting bison. As meticulously researched as Jean Auel's Earth Children series but with the benefit of recent discoveries, this novella is an updated story revealing how contact between Neanderthals and Early Humans had surprising results. After an injured Neanderthal hunter is taken captive, Raven, as a healer, feels she has no option but to become his advocate. Her own survival soon becomes doubtful when the band's leader threatens to cast her out onto the steppe for what he sees as dangerous willfulness. Raven feels an unexpected empathy for the mysterious Neanderthal. But while trying to preserve his life and health, will she go so far as to commit what could be the worst error of her own life? Mark Hayek will never find out that Raven faced a frightening dilemma. But if he did know, he would understand that the present reality exists because of choices made in the past.