THE QUEEN CONSORT OF GREAT BRITAIN BOOK CLUB CHOICE. A cozy coming-of-age novel in the spirit of Dickens, Lemony Snicket and I Capture the Castle. One stormy night in 1928, a huge whale washes up on the shore of the British Channel. By law, the animal's body belongs to the king, but twelve-year-old Christabel has other plans. Together with her brother, sister and several household members, she organizes a theater in a giant whale skeleton. There she can hide from her worthless foster parents and their stupid educational plans. But Christabel does not even suspect what role this children's improvised theater will play in her life when, ten years later, she and her younger brother find themselves in the heart of Nazi-occupied France as secret agents of the British crown.