The Village of Bones

In this prequel to the Earthsong series, a young mother journeys to fulfill a prophecy about her child who is destined to save their people from conquest.

New York Times–Bestselling Author

Six thousand years ago in Neolithic Europe, the citizens of the city of Shara worship Amonah, Goddess of the Sea. Guided by their Priestess-Queen, they are a peaceful people, blessed with plentiful bounty, and devoted to living in love and harmony with nature and others. 

Sabalah will be Shara’s next Priestess-Queen. Unable to conceive, she despairs becoming the first barren queen in generations, despite the Goddess appearing to her and revealing she will give birth to a magical child. Then Arash, a musician-trader from the West Beyond the West, arrives in Shara for the village’s annual spring celebration. Handsome and attentive, he restores Sabalah’s spirit with his love and the promise of a future together. 

But Arash vanishes, leaving Sabalah heartbroken—until she learns she is pregnant with the Goddess’s prophecy. She promised Sabalah that she would bear a daughter, Marrah, who would save Shara and all her fellow worshippers from the nomadic “Beastmen.” To protect her unborn child, Sabalah must leave her home in the east and travel across Europe into the Motherlands, to the place where Marrah will be born and hidden in order to survive and fulfill her destiny.

Reunited with Arash, who escaped the Beastmen’s captivity, Sabalah travels west, finding generosity and kindness along the way, and eventually giving birth. But their safety is shattered when they encounter a strange tribe even more dangerous than the Beastmen—a people whose culture predates humankind—and Sabalah learns a devastating and terrifying truth about Arash . . .

“The Village of Bones gives us the vivid adventures of The Clan of the Cave Bear, the magic of The Mists of Avalon and Lord of the Rings, and the beauty of Avatar.” —Dorothy Hearst, author of the Wolf Chronicles