The Lionnesses Of Chauvet

Sophie Marvaud

The birth of a clan of women, and the first double murder of humanity.

35,000 BC, in Ardèche. The last Neanderthals rub shoulders with Homo sapiens settled in the area. For the first time, humans paint on the walls of caves. At the entrance of a cave, facing a rock bridge between the cliffs, painters Tizia and Naëlisse have founded the Lionesses Clan: a community of women and children who live together. One evening during a snowstorm, the two women disappear. Yoalna, the girl they raised, discovers their bodies in a ravine, the knife of one stabbed into the throat of the other. Although everything seems to indicate that they killed each other, Yoalna refuses to believe it. Her investigation will reveal the secrets of their incredible destiny.

Sophie Marvaud is passionate about history. She wrote two prehistoric thrillers: The Chaman of Lascaux and The Choc of Carnac (2021 France Bleu Award), both reprinted as mass-market paperbacks at 10/18. In her works, she questions the organization of societies, power relationships and the place of violence. Sophie Marvaud is also a screenwriter and adaptor, and she teaches dramaturgical construction in a film school.