This novel
portrayed the stories of seven woman and how Europeans are related to one of these women. These
women were referred to as the Seven Daugters of Eve; their names being Ursula, Xenia, Helena, Velda,
Tara, Katrine, and Jasmine. They lived from 45,000 years ago to the most recent, which was 10,000
years ago. The main concept of this novel is that our mitochondrial DNA is the one thing that us
humans can compare to find our ancestors.

This book is
partly the story of the genetic discoveries, and partly Bryan' story of how those discoveries came
about through a series of chances in his life. So there is both science, and human interest. Sykes
also explains historical assumptions that other scientists have made, and why those did not work
out, previous to the new discoveries.

There was only one part of the book I did not enjoy as
much, which were the chapters devoted to the hypothetical lives of the various seven "clan-mothers."
This part is not science, merely conjecture. However, I can see why he included them-to give a
CONCRETE example of how their lives would have existed, and how they were just some of the many
women living at that time. However, the other women's mitochondrial DNA, for reasons clearly
explained, did not get passed down to Europeans.

The book focuses primarily on both the
complicated story of European ancestry, and the solution of the previous mystery of South Pacific
ancestry. But the best thing about the book is that he winds up by providing a discussion of the
ancestry of the whole world, and gives a detailed map about how, where, and when all of those
branches came out of Africa-as well as mapping the branches we know from Africa today.