ABOUT
THE BOOK

For him it began with a bright blue parrot feather that fell from Ella Lynch’s hat when she was horseback riding in the Bois de Boulogne. The year was 1854, and Francisco Solano Lopez — “Franco,” the future dictator of Paraguay — began his courtship of the young, beautiful Irishwoman with a poncho, a Paraguayan band, and a horse named Mathilde.

From Paris, Ella Lynch follows Franco to Asunción, where she reigns as his mistress. Isolated and estranged in this new world, she embraces her lover’s ill-fated dream — one fuelled by outsize imperial ambition and heedless arrogance, and with devastating consequences for Paraguay and all its inhabitants.