Exclusive: New Novel About Real Tennis Star Turned WW II Spy

Here is an exclusive excerpt from the new period thriller about a real tennis star turned WW II spy. Ace, Marvel, Spy by Jenni L. Walsh focuses on tennis legend Alice Marble, a player few people remember today.

But Marble won 18 Grand Slam championships in the amateur era and was essentially ranked #1 in the world when war broke out in 1939. In a tumbling series of events, she was engaged, pregnant, desolate when her fiance was shot down over Germany and died…and then recruited to be a spy for the U.S. 

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It gets even more exciting from there and Walsh did her work well. It’s already earned praise from Booklist, which calls Ace, Marvel, Spy “a page-turning delight.” And legendary tennis star and activist Billie Jean King–who actually studied under Marble–gives this book her hearty endorsement.

The following excerpt is from Chapter Two, a flashback to 1930, when Marble was just finding her way as a player. It shows the grit that would make Marble a champion and the improvisation that would serve her well as a spy. Being a tennis buff, I loved it and agree with King, who says Walsh “captures the thrill of being on the court.” Now serving, Jenni L. Walsh.

Ace, Marvel, Spy by Jenni L. Walsh ($18.99; Harper Muse) Buy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble 

The following is an excerpt from Ace, Marvel, Spy by Jenni L. Walsh, courtesy of Harper Muse. Copyright 2025; all rights reserved by Jenni L. Walsh and Harper Muse. 

Chapter 2

July 19, 1930

British Columbia Clay Court Championships

Alice growled deep in her throat, from both pain and frustration. She’d won the first set of the match. Her opponent had taken the second, which swayed the game’s momentum in the other player’s favor. Now they were going into a third and final set after a ten-minute break.

At a limp, Alice followed her opponent off the court and toward the dressing room. She didn’t know the other player’s name. Not because Alice thought herself above the girl. In fact, it was the opposite. Alice’s opponent was spit and polish. Wearing a uniform Alice drooled over, which made her own middy blouse and long white pleated skirt appear frumpy. The other girl was likely born with a silver spoon in her mouth and a top-of-the-line racquet in her hand. Alice didn’t know her opponent’s name because whether it was Jane or Judy or Jennifer, it wouldn’t have meant a lick to Alice. At only seventeen years old, but more importantly, having played for only two years, Alice was too wet behind the ears to know the who’s who of tennis.

In fact, she was too new to know much of anything about tennis. She only picked up a racquet to begin with because her oldest brother, Dan, insisted it was more ladylike than playing baseball with the boys. 

“You can hit a tennis ball just as hard as a baseball,” Dan reasoned.

Alice could.

With her first swing, she fell in love with tennis. She became obsessed with the satisfying thunk of the ball striking her racquet. How rewarding it was when her timing was on and she hit it perfectly. Or when the ball went exactly where she wanted it to go.

More than anything, Alice coveted being in control.

She glanced again at her opponent. The other girl was chatting with her coach, strategizing while changing into a new game blouse.

Alice sat alone in the dressing room. Her shirt stuck to her with sweat.

Feeling inferior was an emotion all too real to Alice off the court. But put her on a court . . . now, that was the great equalizer. It didn’t matter that Alice’s background was humbler. Both girls had a racquet, the same out-of-bound lines, and a net to hit the ball over. At the end of the match, whoever played best won.

Alice so badly wanted that to be her. The biggest problem she faced going into the third set: her heels were on fire. Which, frankly, made being the better player damn near impossible. She blew out a breath and tucked her short blonde hair behind her ears, repositioning on the bench, seething in pain. A moment later, another person dropped beside her.

“Miss Marble?”

She nodded to the man.

“Let me have a look at those feet of yours.”

“You’re a doctor? You look like one.”

It was the white hair, bushy eyebrows. The stethoscope around his neck also helped.

“Thank you, I suppose,” he said with a smile. “Now, off with your shoes.”

“It won’t be pretty,” Alice warned him.

“I once drained an abscess as big as my hand.”

Gingerly she removed her battered shoes. Alice’s socks already had holes from overuse. Now they were also bloodied. While she removed them, the doctor made a clucking sound. When he set his eyes on her bare skin, he sucked in a breath through his teeth.

“Sweetie,” he started, stopped. He shook his head. “You’ve been playing for days with blisters, haven’t you?”

At this point, the days had run together. But it was the finals of the British Columbia Clay Court Championships, and Alice had played three rounds, a quarterfinal, and a semifinal to get here.

Frankly, she still couldn’t believe the Northern California Tennis Association invited her to go as their representative. Yes, she’d won a few junior tournaments to get on their radar. But she was just a kid. A kid without a coach or tennis club. Without a sponsor and all the fancy equipment. Without any real tennis knowledge besides to hit the ball as hard as she could when it was blasted over the net at her.

Originally Alice almost had to reject the invitation. An answer she would’ve delivered through tears. Her family, now that Dad had been gone a few years, barely had the money to buy new socks, let alone send her to another country, even with the tennis association giving her a stipend of seventy-five dollars to go toward her expenses. She didn’t have the heart to ask her ma for the rest. Instead, Alice did the odd job. Jobs, really. And she sold her old glove and bat. Still, she’d come up short.

Then a mysterious envelope arrived in the mail—no sender, hence the mystery—with three twenty-dollars bills inside. With that very generous donation, the measly amount Alice had earned, and the association’s stipend, she’d been able to make the trip north.

And now that she was at the Jericho Club, she couldn’t blow it. She’d come too far and still had so much to prove. There was just that little problem that she could barely walk, let alone run.

“Can you fix me up, Doctor?”

He pressed his lips together. “Miss Marble, your blisters are infected, badly. I’m surprised you’ve made it this long. And as a medical professional, I am bound to tell you that it’s unsafe to continue playing.”

“I just need enough bandaging to get me through this last set. Can you do that?”

To prove a point, he gently pressed gauze to her heel. Alice cringed and tears sprang to her eyes.

Someone shouted a warning that the match would resume in two minutes. She rolled her neck, feeling defeated, feeling angry, feeling like she was going to let down everyone who believed in her.

Truth be told, Alice didn’t know where the idea came from—a stroke of brilliance, perhaps—but she asked the good doctor if he had any scissors in his bag of tricks.

He did.

Without a minute to spare, she hacked at the heels of her shoes, cutting out a square shape in both.

The doctor’s bushy eyebrows were sky-high.

“Tape?” Alice asked him.

It was the best she could think of to keep on her backless footwear.

"Well, I’ll be,” the doctor said, shaking his head as she wrapped the tape in figure eights around her ankles and the bottoms of her shoes. Alice hoped that response meant respect as opposed to thinking her a foolish kid.

All she could think was, Well, I’ll be finishing these games, this set, and this match. 

Alice jogged back to the court. She could do that now without wincing. That was already a victory. So was the fact it was her turn to serve. That gave her an advantage as she’d much rather be the one slamming the ball over the net than the one receiving it. And slam she did, taking the first game. She even won the second game, despite her opponent whacking the balls at her. Four more to go.

Alice could run, jump, stop, and start better now. Back in Golden Gate Park, she always played on dusty asphalt courts, the only courts available to her in the public parks. This was her first time on clay, and she didn’t hate it. Despite the surface being slicker and it being harder to find her footing on the gritty surface—hello, blisters, as she slipped around—the game moved slower. And now, with her modified footwear, she was making it to most balls pain-free.

Someone shouted her opponent’s name. Henderson. Alice’s attention caught on it. No one knew her name. No one was shouting it. No one was in her corner. Maybe someday that would all change.

If she worked hard enough.

The ball came off Henderson’s racquet. Alice zeroed in and ran, sliding over the clay, feeling it move under her feet as if she were skating, trying to time her swing perfectly to return the shot.

Henderson handled it, approaching the net.

So did Alice.

They exchanged a series of rapid-fire volleys until Henderson unexpectedly lobbed the ball at Alice, sailing it over Alice’s head, forcing her backward. She leaped up and connected with the ball with an overhead that cracked like thunder.

Men were the ones who smashed the ball. And in the short amount of time Alice had been playing, she hadn’t seen a lot of women leaving their feet. 

It’s unladylike,” she’d heard a stuffy older lady say at one of her early tournaments.

Did Alice care?

Nope.

Why wouldn’t Alice jump if it meant reaching the ball and winning a point?

The ball zoomed over the net, much to the crowd’s delight. Maybe things were changing and tennis was becoming less stuffy.

Alice’s point.

Alice’s game.

Henderson won the next.

Then Alice.

Eventually they were tied 6–6. And tennis had a pesky rule of winning by two.

In the end, Alice did.

She fell to her hands and knees, her ridiculous bare, bloody heels pointing to the sky. But she’d done it. She’d won her first tournament on foreign soil. And all she wanted was more, more, more. 

The previous was an excerpt from Ace, Marvel, Spy by Jenni L. Walsh, courtesy of Harper Muse. Copyright 2025; all rights reserved by Jenni L. Walsh and Harper Muse. 

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Jenni L. Walsh is the USA Today bestselling author of historical novels Becoming Bonnie, Side by Side, A Betting Woman, The Call of the Wrens and Unsinkable. She also writes books for children, including the nonfiction She Dared series and historical novels Hettie and the London Blitz, I Am Defiance, By the Light of Fireflies, Over and Out and Operation: Happy. She lives in the Philadelphia suburbs with her husband, daughter, son and various pets. To learn more about Jenni and her books, please visit jennilwalsh.com or @jennilwalsh on social media.

Ace, Marvel, Spy by Jenni L. Walsh ($18.99; Harper Muse) Buy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble

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