num_pages: 504
description: Over five years in the writing The Dovekeepers is Alice Hoffman's most ambitious and mesmerizing novel a tour de force of imagination and research set in ancient Israel.In 70 C.E. nine hundred Jews held out for months against armies of Romans on Masada a mountain in the Judean desert. According to the ancient historian Josephus two women and five children survived. Based on this tragic and iconic event Hoffman's novel is a spellbinding tale of four extraordinarily bold resourceful and sensuous women each of whom has come to Masada by a different path. Yael's mother died in childbirth and her father an expert assassin never forgave her for that death. Revka a village baker's wife watched the horrifically brutal murder of her daughter by Roman soldiers; she brings to Masada her young grandsons rendered mute by what they have witnessed. Aziza is a warrior's daughter raised as a boy a fearless rider and an expert marksman who finds passion with a fellow soldier. Shirah born in Alexandria is wise in the ways of ancient magic and medicine a woman with uncanny insight and power. The lives of these four complex and fiercely independent women intersect in the desperate days of the siege. All are dovekeepers and all are also keeping secrets - about who they are where they come from who fathered them and whom they love.
language: English
title: The Dovekeepers
publisher: Simon and Schuster