The Dovekeepers, Alice Hoffman

Apologies for my lack of December posts, but The Dovekeepers took up quite a bit of time. Alice Hoffman is one of my favourite authors. I rarely read books twice but I fell in love with Practical Magic and have re-read my tattered copy more times than I can count. So excited I was when I saw The Dovekeepers that it actually pains me to report bad news. I didn’t really like it. It was long, dragged on and detailed to the MAX. Forgive me Ms. Hoffman for I still worship your other pieces of work (I also loved Here on Earth); but this took some real muscle to finish. And finish I did because every step of the way I patiently waited for the story to pick up.

The book is broken into four parts, stories told from the perspectives of four separate women. Brought together by fate, the lives of these women are woven together in a secret village hidden from the Romans. One will find Hoffman’s usual themes tucked away inside the pages of this book. You’ll find love, magic and strong female characters; you’ll even find a history lesson. I could see a lot of literary critics hailing this as "an important piece of work" or "a brilliant look into the past" - comments like that came to mind when I read it. But overall, this book still yielded one big yawn from me.