SINGING BONES: An Epic Saga of Loss and Survival in an Ancient Neolithic World, Téuta's World series #2

SINGING BONES: An Epic Saga of Loss and Survival in an Ancient Neolithic World
S.G. ULLMAN
Stuart Ullman (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$5.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Nearly 8,300 years ago, a sudden climate collapse reshaped the earth. Winters grew longer and colder, harvests failed, coastlines flooded, and the ground itself became unstable. For the Téuta, a settled Neolithic village that had endured for generations, survival became uncertain.

Eini is born with troubling visions of disaster—warnings her people dismiss as superstition. As the climate worsens and violence spreads among desperate neighbors, Eini spends her lifetime trying to protect her family and preserve the fragile traditions that hold her community together. When catastrophe finally strikes, the Téuta must face the unthinkable: abandoning their ancestral home and redefining who they are in a transformed world.

Told across generations, Singing Bones follows the lives of women whose strength, memory, and resilience shape the fate of their people—from prophecy, to survival, to leadership forged in loss. Song, story, and shared history become tools of endurance in a world where nothing can be taken for granted.

Grounded in real archaeological and climate research, Singing Bones is ancient historical fiction set during the Neolithic era. Its spiritual elements arise from a prehistoric worldview in which nature, belief, and survival are inseparable. Sweeping yet intimate, it explores how early civilizations responded to climate catastrophe, displacement, and change.

Perfect for readers of immersive historical fiction, ancient civilizations, prehistoric survival stories, and epic sagas rooted in humanity’s deep past.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Three years ago, I gave Author Ullman's The Téuta's Child four stars. It's a deeply human story of dealing with the hand that's dealt to you, one that patiently invites you to be in a human world long vanished and still, because humans are truly never going to change in basic needs, familiar within its fascinating surface differences.

One basic reality of human life is loss, losing love, losing comfortable certainty; the other angle of view on this is change, that difficult-to-endure condition of uncertainty and adjustment and learning. The world our characters inhabit is changing with relentless momentum. It was a time in human history wherein the very earth beneath people's feet was vanishing, prey animals were simply vanishing, the whole basis of life was unsettled, no longer trustworthy and familiar. The last days of vanished Doggerland brought to vivid life through the story of a woman and her descendants is poignant and very emotionally involving.

I was a little confused about how Eini's visions could be dismissed in a time of supernatural reality being the only way to understand the world. It's necessary, of course, for there to be a story...the hero faces the obstacle of disbelief in order to make the reader invest in their rightness...but rwally, simply being required to question how that could happen made me reflect on how, eg, climate scientists must experience their world. I bear down hard on the concept of "vanishing" because its connotation of helplessness, of cruel inevitability and enforced absence. It is inherent in the idea of seeing the world around you change into something you've never seen before, have no idea how to deal with, can't even imagine what to change in yourself to cause positive adjustment.

There's a lot to be said for that kind of rattling uncertainty to make a story work. This story made me sit still and absorb the fear, the panic, the resolve summoned from one's depths, as these brave human beings took their lives in their hands and...angrily, fearfully...made the changes they needed to in order to survive.

I hope very much we will get more stories in this dynamic world.