People of the Sea by Kathleen O'Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear

These books keep going and going.  Part of a series, they don't really have to be read in order.  In fact, this one takes place in a period of history that was before when the fourth book took place.  You may miss a few details, but really, as obscure as some of this is, it isn't going to have an impact on your reading enjoyment.

People of the Sea is about racing for your life.  Kestrel, having been accused by her husband of incest, is heavily pregnant and seeking to escape his wrath.  He's always beat her and left her alone, but now he wants to kill her, and possibly the child contained within her.  So she sets off to find a tribe by the sea where she can hopefully be taken in and accepted.  Meanwhile Sunchaser is having trouble dreaming and the mammoths are dying out.  He wants to save them, but can't seem to make his way clearly in the world of dreams.

Once again you have some very crazy characters in this book.  I'm beginning to think that madness is a trend.  Certainly Kestrel's husband has a deep emotion problem since he is abusive, thinks he can talk to the dead, and has a one track mind on venting his anger.  Kestrel is brave but too modest.  Part of that is probably a result of abuse but it seems that if she had all those skills she would have been valued highly by the rest of her people and perhaps not treated the way she was by them.  Sunchaser, well I didn't really understand his part in anything.  He wasn't like the Dreamers in other books and I couldn't really understand what the spirits were trying to accomplish with him.

Actually the spirits were a little bit weird this round (weirder than normal).  The whole side plotline with the character Boy didn't make sense to me.  Maybe I just wasn't thinking that deep while reading it, but I didn't understand the underlying message that they were trying to get across with that character.  Or at least it didn't hold the same type of meaning to me.  Maybe for someone else it would be a little better.  I did enjoy Kestrel's journey as it meant most of the landscape was described and different peoples were encountered.  Too often these books focus on individuals rather than culture and environment.

Not a bad book but I don't think it's one of their best ones.  Since there's still at least ten more books in the series I'm sure that I'll encounter another great one at some point though.

People of the Sea
Copyright 1993
557 pages