Groff’s title references the environment in which something-or someone–develops, in this case the nunnery where Marie is sent because when she was seventeen, Eleanor of Aquitaine judged her too tall and plain for an advantageous marriage. The character of Marie in Groff’s novel is half-sister to Henry II and became the Abbess of Shaftesbury. Then I read about Lauren Groff’s novel Matrix at Care’s Books and Pie, so I took a short break from the Penman series to read it, as it’s set at the same time and centers on a historical and literary figure who met Eleanor, Marie de France. I’ve been reading about Eleanor of Aquitaine, as I do from time to time, deeply immersed in a series of long historical novels by Sharon Kay Penman, loaned to me by a friend.
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