An enthralling tale rendered with consummate literary skill. The plot is intriguingly complex, with only a single element unresolved. Hoffman births literature from tragedy: the destruction of Jerusalem's Temple, the siege of Masada and the loss of Zion. owerful and gripping novel about survival and endurance. In this well-researched novel, Hoffman vividly brings this tragedy to life. after the suicide pact of the Jewish rebels there, according to the historian Josephus. Only two women and five children of more than 900 people survived the Roman siege of Masada in the year 73 C.E. Massive descriptive paragraphs slow the action, until, by the end, the reader is simply worn out. Besieged at Masada, the Jews held out for months against the vast Roman armies. After being forced out of their home in Jerusalem by the Romans, 900 Jews were ensconced in a fortress at Masada, a mountain in the Judean desert. Hoffman can tell a tale and knows about creating compassionate characters, but the leaden archaic prose style she uses tells more than it shows. From Executive Producers Roma Downey and Mark Burnett, THE DOVEKEEPERS is based on the true events at Masada in 70 C.E. The result is a high-minded feminist story of unassailable seriousness.Īlmost too dense to bear, Hoffman's 23rd novel is brimming with doom, based on the story of the mass suicide of Jewish Zealots at Masada as recorded by the historian Josephus. Hoffman doesn't ignore the larger-than-life leaders and their deadly clash, but her creative path into Masada is from the ground up: not through its generals and warriors, but through its mothers, daughters and wives. The Dovekeepers is an enormously ambitious, multi-part story, richly decorated with the details of life 2,000 years ago. Nothing written would prepare you for the gravitas of her new book, an immersive historical novel about Masada during the Roman siege in the 1st century.

The dovekeepers book summary