The SealEaters, 20,000 BC is the last of the planned books in the Winds of Change Series on the Peopling of the Americas. The time period is the onset of the last Ice Age which ends the Time of Peace and ushers in the Time of War on earth. The Time of War continues today. The novel is a survival story of the Solutreans in southern France/northern Spain. due to advancing ice sheets, seals from the north have beached on their shores and the SealEaters have come to depend on them for their major food source. The SealEaters face advancing ice from the north, warring groups beyond the mountains to the east and south. In search of a new land, a small number of SealEaters travel the arc formed by the ice sheets, eating seals along the way across the Atlantic Ocean to the east coast of what is now North America, a coast very different from what we know today. They survey the land and groups of people living there, trying to find a new living place. There are differences among the Solutreans and the people they meet in the new land when compared to the People in the first four books. The SealEaters’ group cohesiveness has disintegrated when compared to the People of the preceding books. The SealEaters, 20,000 BC tells the tale of this effort to find a new land.
Reviews
Award review of The SealEaters, 20,000 BC disclosed the following:
Bonnye Matthews is America’s preeminent writer of prehistoric history. Her task is one we could believe insurmountable—to chronical the lives, relationships and activities of people 20,000 BC—in this case “The SealEaters.” The reason this book is successful is because Matthews tethers fantasy to fact and bases fiction on reliable and credible sources. Her characters are well drawn and believable; their emotions are plausible; their psychological action is commensurate with physical action. This is not only an action adventure story, it’s a book of hearts and minds, and humans who combat nature and an unfriendly environment to survive and succeed. There are places that captivate the reader and Matthews’ writing is exemplary and riveting.
Grace Cavalieri, multiple award winning author of 16 books and chapbooks of poetry, 26 plays the 21st of which was presented at the Smithsonian Institution, and producer and host of “The Poet and the Poem” from the Library of Congress .”
