I’ve never been to Cape Cod, but this book is so evocative in its description of the land and the house, that you really feel like you’re there. Women who had never left Massachusetts dreamed of the Middle Banks and the Great Banks the way some men dreamed of hell: The place that could give you everything you might need and desire. No matter how beautiful the day, scented with new grass or spring onions, they found themselves wishing for snow and ice, for gray November, for December’s gales and land-locked harbors, for fleets that returned safe and sound, all hands accounted for, all boys grown into men. This year, there is even more danger than usual because the British have placed an embargo on the ships of the Cape.Įvery May, the women in town gathered at the wharf. The book opens up with the women of this small Cape Cod town sending their men off on their annual fishing expeditions. Each new inhabitant learns the stories of the people that lived before them. It’s a collection of short stories only each story is connected to the land, the house, and sometimes to each other. I’ve read a lot of her books but I think this one’s my favorite.īlackbird House, published in 2004, tells the story of a farm house in a remote area of Cape Cod, from the War of 1812 to the present time. Instead of complexity and nuance, you get emotion and spirit and beauty. She has a poetic, mystical way of writing. Blackbird House is a difficult book to describe, but if you’ve read anything by Alice Hoffman you know her books can be a little unusual.

The dovekeepers book summary