In the tradition of The Clan of the Cave Bear, a fabulous story of ancient Java and the shaman, Fern, who reaches into the future. The fiery mountain is gone. In its place, naked figures crouch within the dark mouth of a cave. The faces are strange, yet Fern knows them. They inhabit a world of echoes, alien yet familiar. Fifty thousand years ago: The People, who for time immemorial have lived in the Javanese rainforests, are driven from their ancestral hunting grounds by the invaders they call the Newcomers. So begins the epic journey that will bring them to Australia. They are The Inheritors, the first humans to settle this southern land. Present-day Australia: Fern is visited by two shamans of that past time. They persuade her to join them on a pilgrimage of discovery; a pilgrimage that will take her through a multitude of dangers and suffering, to discover her links with those who have gone before. In this remarkable debut, Fletcher Anthony brings us a world that is magical and inhabited by the spirits. It is also based on what is known of the people of ancient Java and how they came to leave their ancestral lands.

A small tribe of Neanderthals find themselves at odds with a tribe comprised of homo sapiens, whose superior intelligence and agility threatens their doom.