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. The Dovekeepers is Alice Hoffman’s masterpiece.

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Best Books of the Month, October 2011: Yael was born of a dead mother and father who knows how to become invisible. Revka learned silence when her grandsons lost their voices after witnessing their mother’s brutal murder. Aziza became a boy to protect herself, and hates being forced to turn back into a woman. And Shirah will do anything to protect those she loves from the horrors of the world. The power and violence of these women is evident in every word of The Dovekeepers. Hoffman’s prose is vivid and unforgettable, scorching like the desert heat, and will stay with you long after you finish the last page. A story of sacrifice, endurance, and above all, survival, The Dovekeepers is homage to anyone who’s ever held fast to their beliefs in the face of nearly insurmountable adversity. --Malissa Kent

Review

USA Today
Alice Hoffman weaves fiction and fact in  The Dovekeepers, a thrilling, passionate saga of four women who come together to tend the doves in Masada. 
Hoffman's fiction is always compelling, but the history within The Dovekeepers  makes this novel haunting.

The Boston Globe

Alice Hoffman's "The Dovekeepers'' is a splendid entertainment, a harrowing, thrilling, feminist historical novel fueled to fever pitch by a rich imagination... a combination of good writing, affecting themes, and dramatic storytelling. It's an enthralling tale that lingers in the mind.

St. Louis Dispatch

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If a world of strong women and their complex relationships with one another doesn't draw you into Alice Hoffman's brilliant new novel, "The Dovekeepers," read it for Hoffman's fine sense of narrative, history and detail as she shares the story of four women who come by various paths to Masada.

Entertainment Weekly

The women in  The Dovekeepers are physically and spiritually strong, they have elemental female desires when it comes to love, sex, and children...the author grounds her expansive, intricately woven and deepest new novel in biblical history, with a devotion and seriousness of purpose that may surprise even her most constant fans.

"I am still reeling from The Dovekeepers--from the history Alice Hoffman illuminates, from the language she uses to bring these women to life. This novel is a testament to the human spirit and to love rising from the ashes of war. But most of all, this novel is one that will never be forgotten by a reader." -- Jodi Picoult, author of Sing You Home

"Beautiful, harrowing, a major contribution to twenty -first century literature." —Toni Morrison, Nobel Laureate in Literature

“In her remarkable new novel, Alice Hoffman holds a mirror to our ancient past as she explores the contemporary themes of sexual desire, women's solidarity in the face of strife, and the magic that's quietly present in our day-to-day living. Put The Dovekeepers at the pinnacle of Hoffman's extraordinary body of work. I was blown away.” — Wally Lamb, author of The Hour I First Believed *

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