Can a queen ever retire? Letitia, Queen of Melloria, is stuck in the aspic of a job-for-life, but that doesn't stop her dreaming of a restful retirement in the Caribbean. She schemes to undermine Princess Dawna of Bulimia, her son Crown Prince Catheter's bride, whose natural beauty and unstoppable crowd appeal set her teeth on edge and drive her to distraction. Meanwhile, the stuffy, tradition-bound regime of her husband, King Godfrey, is about to be toppled by the ultra-leftist People's Party, headed by the slippery Paul Slamil.
Post-revolution, Letitia and her family, minus the exiled Princess Dawna, escape imprisonment helped by closet royalists, like journalist Arabella Scott-Natterson. Their capture by King Slobodan, ruler of the boorish Slobodians, ends with the turn of a friendly card.
Returning to Melloria, they fight a grueling election against Slamil and the People's Party. Dawna joins them and wins the presidency for Godfrey, only to fall to an assassin's bullet.
In the post-election turmoil, President Godfrey battles to restore the monarchy until Scott-Natterson's expose of Craig, his 10-year-old bastard son by Sharon, a palace servant, forces his resignation and brings Letitia's longed-for dream of retirement tantalizingly close.
First, the successor to Melloria's crown must be decided between Catheter, out of favor because of his adultery with horsewoman Lucinda Limehouse-Blewit, and rank outsider Craig.
This melding of a Sue Townsend satire and a John Kennedy Toole caper is tinged with the melancholy and the magic of monarchy.
