DAUGHTER OF KURA
By Debra Austin

Library Journal:

Austin, a former obstetrician with a lifelong passion for paleoanthropology, has written an original and fascinating first novel set approximately 500,000 years ago in Africa, the cradle of humankind. Now that she has grown into womanhood, 12-year-old Snap, granddaughter of the Kura clan's matriarchal leader, looks forward to the springtime bonding ceremony, marking the time when the men return from hunting and trading. In her clan, men and women come together only for the summer months, when the women select the men they will mate with for the season. Snap and her new mate, Ash, are blissfully happy, their time together marred only by her mother's choice of mate, Bapoto, who brings with him strange new ideas of religion and male dominance. In her notes, Austin explains that she based Snap's world both on the research of evolutionary biologists and paleoanthropologists and on her own speculation of how Homo erectus may have developed art, religion, trade, societal norms, and language. VERDICT Though somewhat reminiscent of Sue Harrison's and Jean M. Auel's books about prehistoric peoples, this debut, which offers a fascinating peek into humanity's earliest days, stands out as well researched and wholly believable.

Publishers Weekly:

In Kura, a prehistoric village of women, peace and stability reign under the rule of the tribal Mother. The granddaughter of the current Mother, Snap, is about to undergo her first Bonding ritual, when the women choose mates. Bapoto, a strange man with unfamiliar spiritual ideas, arrives and begins to accumulate power, shifting the society away from its matriarchal structure. Snap resists and is driven from the village. Desperate and pregnant, she must find the wisdom and courage to save her village from Bapoto's threat. Austin, a former doctor with a serious passion for paleoanthropology, brings exhaustive research and strong writing to her debut. She accomplishes an extremely difficult task—to get readers to understand a community that resembles both human and animal societies, but the world she depicts is so alien that at times it's difficult to relate to. Still, this is a remarkable first effort, and Snap and her companions will easily engage readers.

Tess Gerritsen, author of The Keepsake:

The prehistoric past comes vividly to life in this thrilling and boldly imaginative epic of a girl's journey into womanhood. Debra Austin recreates a fascinating world that might have been, and she makes us believe every detail.

Elle Newmark, author of The Book of Unholy Mischief:

In the tradition of Clan of the Cave Bear, Daughter of Kura is a highly imaginative recreation of a prehistoric matriarchy. The fascinating twist is an exploration of the roots of religion and the willingness of certain people to exploit it for personal power. I found it an intelligent and engrossing read.

Dorothy Hearst, author of Promise of the Wolves:

Daughter of Kura is an intriguing look into what life might have been like in the hearts and minds of our ancient ancestors.  The complexities of Austin's homo erectus culture and the heartfelt story of a young woman's coming of age are fascinating and compelling.

HistoricalNovels.info:

Set a half-million years in the past, Daughter of Kura is the imaginative story of a young woman coming of age in a matriarchal culture in southeastern Africa.

Snap's species is Homo erectus, a forerunner of our own species, Homo sapiens. Adept with tools, she uses a digging stick to gather yams and a basket to carry and store them in. After she is injured fighting off a leopard attack, her problem is, to a Homo sapiens reader, both familiar and strange: "Blood soaked the hair of her arm and splashed into the last hole she had dug. The smell was strong and earthy, like a damp stream bank with an overturned slab of moss, the unmistakable odor of injury. Hyenas will scent that, even a morning's run from here, she thought ...."

This mingling of familiar and unfamiliar drives a well-paced, suspenseful story. Snap's struggle to survive and her yearning for community and affection are portrayed with great emotional immediacy. Although her matriarchal clan's customs are strikingly different from those of modern human societies, the consistency and realism of their portrayal makes them both convincing and fascinating. With only an archaeological record to work from, the author had to imagine, for the most part, the culture of Snap's people. She based it partly on what scientists have learned about spotted hyenas, which live in matriarchal clan groups that send males away at puberty to find mates in new clans.

Snap's people view their world in a practical, experiential way, following traditions that work for them and passing down stories that tell how past matriarchs solved challenges and guided the clan through difficult times. But when a male from far away arrives and the clan matriarch, Snap's mother, chooses him as her mate for the winter, he introduces the concept of a Great Spirit who must be propitiated to avert danger and bring good fortune. This theme links Snap's distant world with our own, warning of the risks that unquestioned, authoritarian religious beliefs may present in any time.