Alice Hoffman’s The Dovekeepers marked something of a departure for the hugely successful American novelist, better known for magical realist holiday fodder like Practical Magic or The Story Sisters. Her latest novel plunges us into 70AD, into the midst of Jewish resistance to the Roman siege of Masala, and into the lives of four women who meet in the dovecot used for processing the manure needed for ye-olde fertiliser.
When the Romans finally manage to prise the fort open, they find 2,000 defiants dead; the only survivor, from whose account this whole story stems, is Josephus – once a Jewish freedom fighter, now a Roman emissary – and he’s hardly a reliable witness.
All material for a hugely entertaining, absorbing, magisterial, gripping page-turner, n’est-ce pas?
Quite the contrary; reviewers had great fun tearing the book apart, flying in the face of the adoring publicity blurb adorning its cover.
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