Eliza Lynch - Ronan Fanning

Eliza Lynch: Queen of Paraguay is one of the most intriguing, and yet one of the least-known stories of modern history.

Escaping a desperate marriage at the age of 20, Eliza fled Ireland to Paris where her extraordinary beauty and intelligence won the attention of the soon-to-be dictator of Paraguay, Francisco Solano Lpez. Although the couple never married, Eliza bore him seven children and was seen as the queen of Paraguay, adored by the public and admired for her glamour and sophistication.

But Eliza and Francisco's love was damned with the outbreak of the infamous War of the Triple Alliance (1864-70), the bloodiest in South America's history.

This is a unique love story, chronicling a romance that endured a desperate turn of fortunes, taking them from a life of royalty to a life on the run, and culminating with the now iconic image of Lynch burying both Lpez and their eldest son in a shallow grave with her bare hands after they had been killed by Brazilian troops.

Dubbed 'The Irish Evita', Eliza Lynch (born in Charleville, County Cork) was the most famous woman in all of South America in the nineteenth century. Her reputation was destroyed by the opposition in the wake of the War of the Triple Alliance; but in this story of wealth, war, love, loyalty, loss and, above all, survival, Eliza is revealed as a woman who showed extraordinary courage in the face a series of unspeakable horrors. This book restores her to her rightful place among the most remarkable and brave women in modern history.