The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman

When four women meet working in the dovecotes of Masada (now in Israel) during the first Jewish-Roman war, they find themselves drawn to one another despite dissimilarities: Yael is the daughter of an assassin, and an outcast; Revka is her grandsons’ protector and mourns the life that should have been; Aziza was raised a warrior and bridles at life as a girl; and the mystical Shirah is far more powerful than the men around her are comfortable with. Hoffman deftly intertwines fact and fiction in this epic tale about survivors of the Masada siege.

The Dovekeepers, Alice Hoffman, $30.

— S.L.K.