The Queen and I is the brilliantly funny novel by Sue Townsend, author of the Adrian Mole series. THE MONARCHY HAS BEEN DISMANTLED When a Republican party wins the General Election, their first act in power is to strip the royal family of their assets and titles and send them to live on a housing estate in the Midlands. Exchanging Buckingham Palace for a two-bedroomed semi in Hell Close (as the locals dub it), caviar for boiled eggs, servants for a social worker named Trish, the Queen and her family learn what it means to be poor among the great unwashed. But is their breeding sufficient to allow them to rise above their changed circumstance or deep down are they really just like everyone else?

For the past thirteen years, as England became an increasingly unhappy and fearful place, Prince Charles has been living quietly on a bleak council estate, The Flower Exclusion Zone (known locally as 'The Fez), with his wife and love of his life, Camilla. He enjoys gardening and poultry keeping while Camilla spends her days doing as little as possible, alongside their fellow ASBO-subjected neighbours. But life is about to change... Charles refuses to follow his destiny unless his wife can be Queen - and public opinion suggests the people would rather have Jordan than Camilla on the throne. But no sooner has Prince William offered himself as the next monarch, than one Graham Cracknall of Ruislip emerges - claiming to be Charles and Camilla's secret love child, and therefore the rightful heir to the crown. When the battle for the Crown begins the dogs on the Fez begin a struggle of their own - one that sweeps across the dog population of England. As Harris, the Queen's irascible corgi says, 'we've been domesticated for too long, it's time we showed our bleeding teeth.' Will sanity prevail over the right royal cock up that England has become? Or will chaos reign supreme?