Years in the Making

I can't believe it, it had to be over twenty years ago that I read the Jean M. Auel's book series which started with Clan of the Cave Bear. Now she will be releasing another book in the series on March 29th. This has got to be one of the longest amount of times an author has taken to release another book in a series. It's got to have been about 10 years since the last book
  Her new book is titled The Land Of Painted Caves. I wonder how difficult it would be to pick up this new book and have everything fall into place without having to start reading them all over again?