The dovekeepers have come to Masada by different paths: The redheaded Yael, shunned by her father, the assassin, endures a grueling trek through the desert and the loss of her lover. Using the only written account of the siege, Hoffman salts her fictional tale with archaeological artifacts found at Masada - a swatch of tartan cloth inscribed pottery shards a pair of sandals - to imagine how the seven might have survived. In the end, just two women and five children survived.Īlice Hoffman weaves fiction and fact in The Dovekeepers, a thrilling, passionate saga of four women who come together to tend the doves in Masada. Driven from Jerusalem, the people of Masada had created a fortress they hoped would protect them from the Roman invaders. This novel is Alice Hoffman's masterpiece.In the year 70, Roman legions surrounded a Jewish settlement of 960 people who had taken refuge on a plateau on the edge of the Judean Desert. All are dovekeepers, and all are also keeping secrets-about who they are, where they come from, who fathered them, and whom they love. The lives of these four complex and fiercely independent women intersect in the desperate days of the siege, as the Romans draw near.
Shirah is wise in the ways of ancient magic and medicine, a woman with uncanny insight and power. Aziza is a warrior's daughter, raised as a boy, a fearless rider and expert marksman, who finds passion with another soldier. Revka, a village baker's wife, watched the horrifically brutal murder of her daughter by Roman soldiers she brings to Masada her twin grandsons, rendered mute by their own witness. Yael's mother died in childbirth, and her father never forgave her for that death. Based on this tragic historical event, Hoffman weaves a spellbinding tale of four extraordinary, bold, resourceful, and sensuous women, each of whom comes to Masada by a different path. According to the ancient historian Josephus, two women and five children survived. In 70 C.D., nine hundred Jews held out for months against armies of Romans on a mountain in the Judean desert, Masada. Now, in The Dovekeepers, Hoffman delivers her most masterful work yet-one that draws on her passion for mythology, magic, and archaeology and her inimitable understanding of women.
The author of such iconic bestsellers as Illumination Night, Practical Magic, Fortune's Daughter, and Oprah's Book Club selection Here on Earth, Alice Hoffman is one of the most popular and memorable writers of her generation.
Over five years in the writing, Alice Hoffman's most ambitious and mesmerizing work ever, a triumph of imagination and research set in ancient Israel.
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