I love stories about nuns and forgotten women of history, so a Lauren Groff novel about Marie de France seemed a no brainer. And it was great -- totally captivating -- but such an extended fancy I'm baffled why Groff picked Marie de France to be the figure at the heart of the story.

As a novel about medieval, 12th century monastic life for women, it's brilliant. Groff's narrative style -- a kind of wooden, present-tense, third person that ends up suiting the story, with the rigidity and distance from us in time -- paints vibrantly what life at this once blessed-or-bewitched convent would be like. How a smart, ambitious woman might make lemonade out of lemons. But to imagine it would be how the historical Marie de France -- a figure so unknown to us that scholars can't agree who it might be -- ended up living her life felt a bit like a bait and switch. Marie de France's poetry figures in quite early in the story, and then disappears completely; the rich story that unfolds could genuinely have figured for anyone especially since it articulates the history of a royal abbey we never learn the name of, an abbey that grows to mythic grandeur that it too can't be truly historical. 

Still, I liked this book, especially when I stopped trying to search for a poet and lyricist in the pages. I adore novels of nuns and convents, of mystics and abbesses, and this joined the list of those books. An easy read, mostly, with passages tangled and rich with images.