Sleeps With Wolves by Neal Bockoven

A hybrid girl. A killer’s trail. A brutal Ice Age wilderness.

Fourteen-year-old Elka—half Neanderthal, half Homo sapiens—has always lived on the margins of her tribe. When a deadly raid leaves her father near death and her brother slain, she sets off alone with her wolf companion, Misha, determined to track the killers and take vengeance. But in a world where snow falls hard, prey is scarce, and trust is rarer still, survival demands more than courage.

As Elka navigates harsh terrain and haunting memories, Sleeps with Wolves delivers a gripping tale of endurance, identity, and the ancient bond between human and animal. Drawing on cutting-edge paleoanthropology, bestselling author and scientist Neil Bockoven weaves fact and fiction into a visceral journey through Paleolithic Europe—where clan rivalries erupt, sea-borne outsiders arrive with strange tools and customs, and a young woman’s strength may rewrite the fate of her people.

Neil Bockoven is an award-winning PhD geologist, journalist and author who earned his doctorate in geoscience from The University of Texas at Austin. His current interests center on the interaction between Early Modern Humans and Neanderthals during the Paleolithic Age and the amazing related discoveries being made through archaeology and ancient DNA analysis. Neil has been the featured speaker at geological and anthropological societies all over the USA. In addition to his two novels, Moctu and the Mammoth People and The People Eaters, he has also published a related children’s science book titled When We Met Neanderthals.