This incredibly readable first novel tells a story of love, loss, adventure and evolution as three groups of prehistoric women strive to survive and protect their families from the harsh conditions of an early Earth and, in so doing, come to discover God.
'Circles of Stone' is a novel in three parts, each of which offers both a compelling dramatic plot line and a spiritual lesson. The first section deals with the birth of God, the product, Lambert shows us, of a woman's fierce desire to protect the ones she loves. This is the story of the first Zena, who lived when humankind began to walk upright on the savannah in East Africa. For her, life is a constant struggle merely for food, but the depth of love she feels for her children and tribe spins the story of a rich and compelling emotional life. In the end, it is the force of that love that leads to the miraculous birth of god, the Mother.
In the second part, set thousands of years later in the same area, Lambert shows us how the evolution into true homo sapiens brought with it the advantages and dangers of greater intelligence. The second Zena struggles with the pain of loving even in the face of a tragedy to her tribe, at the same time she is gifted with a vision from the Mother that enables her to lead her people to an Eden on the shores of the Red Sea.
The third Zena lives in central Europe at the beginning of the Ice Age. Her culture is rich now in ritual, and her goddess is sanctified - but the peoples' ways of love are not enough to protect them against the growing complexity of their society. A horrible conflict of passions leads Zena to be the first murderess, a death of innocence that only presages the violent times to come. Lambert leaves the reader with the fear of the loss of the Mother, but also a clear sense of the lessons she has yet to teach us if we can only learn again to listen.
