The first book in Michelle Cooper's Montmaray Journals tells the story of the impoverished Montmaray royal family on their tiny (fictional) sovereign island in the Atlantic Ocean between England and Spain, living shoulder to shoulder with their dwindling populace (now just five or six subjects remain).  Princesses Sophie, Veronica, and Henry maintain their monarchical existence by fishing, keeping hens, and milking goats, and occasionally selling off one of the few opulent pieces that remain from Montmaray's long-past period of wealth and influence; the rest of their energy goes into restraining Veronica's lunatic father, King John.  

Narrator Sophie occasionally feels overwhelmed by the circumstances of their life--it's the 1930s and the unrest that menaces Europe is beginning to creep its way toward their rocky island and their relatives in England; she worries that she lacks the fortitude of her stubbornly intellectual cousin Veronica and her determinedly tomboyish sister, who rejects her full name of Henrietta.  But when Nazis invade their island, a murder is committed, and she discovers a complicated secret about her brother, the future King Toby, Sophie finds she has all the strength she needs.