I need a lifetime supply of Kleenex and a trophy that says Best Book of 2019 to give to Casey McQuiston. My heart now has a space carved out that belongs to Alex Claremont-Diaz and Prince Henry Windsor, to Red, White & Royal Blue, to all of us readers left in a puddle of tears caused by this beautiful, poignant story. Not only is this book an incredible LGBTQ+ enemies to lovers romance, it's also the book you didn't even know you needed in our present political climate. I didn't even know I needed it and now I can't shut up about it. I said it in one of my Instagram stories, I wish I had this book in my hands when I was 18 and preparing to vote for the very first time. I wish I had all the thoughts I have now in my head, but at least I've got them now, and hey a Presidential election is on the horizon.
"History, huh?"
Cute, funny, and full of heart, Red, White & Royal Blue follows Alex Claremont-Diaz, son to the President of the United States, as he is forced to befriend Prince Henry Windsor, Prince of England to be exact, at least for the media. Alex is the Mexican-American first son to the democratic FEMALE President and he has high hopes of joining the political world alongside his mother. He sees the title President in his future, but that won't happen as long as he is considered the enemy of the Prince of England, which he really is. Prince Henry Windsor, who we shall now just call Henry, is the quiet, arrogant, well-dressed grandson of the Queen. He is charity events, forced smiles, and a media golden child, at least to Alex. When they're forced to hang out in order to put the media storm to rest they discover that they have quite a bit in common and soon their alliance forms into a friendship. Their friendship leads to some startling discoveries for Alex, like he's bisexual, and some timid sharing from Henry, a closeted gay thanks to familial and societal expectations. What started as a laugh-out-loud story of forced friendship soon became a story of heartbreak, hope, and humanity as Alex and Henry explore their blossoming desires for one another. Their romance is told through in person-interactions, texts, phone calls, and the best emails I have ever read. It's an authentic story about two young men discovering their identities and figuring out the shape and direction of their futures, all with an ocean and several titles between them.
"Whatever, fine. Henry is annoyingly attractive. That's always been a thing, objectively. It's fine."
Casey McQuiston created an entirely new world in Red, White & Royal Blue. Sure, it's America and England, but it's a world with diverse leaders who desire to make positive changes, who truly fight for the people. Alex and Henry know their position and their families' position in the public will make their relationship, their identities, more difficult to embrace, and yet Casey creates for them a world in which they recognize there is strength and power in owning it. Their friends and families, and employees, come from diverse backgrounds, have various heritages, and love freely. Many are out and proud, many wear that culture proudly, Alex and Henry have just not yet found their footing among them. I loved the secondary characters in this novel just as much as I loved our two main heroes. Speaking of secondary characters and world building, I am obsessed with the character interactions in this book. The relationships felt fluid and natural, there is no stilted dialogue. The characters speak and think like their age, their humor is spot on, and the romance is fresh and new feeling. The language, the prose, all of it just made this book that much better for me. I could live in these pages and I mean that quite sincerely, snotty sobbing and all, this book holds a story I want to live and I'm thankful Casey McQuiston gave me the opportunity to do so with her words.
"Straight people, he thinks, probably don't spend this much time convincing themselves the're straight."
Royal romance, politics, and everyone writing about their heart and their tears? Not normally my cuppa tea. I saw the reviews for this though, they were darn good, and one of my closets friends said it was a must-read for my June Pride reading challenge, she also included it was her favorite for the year, so I picked it up and now I do not want to put it down. For the six hours I read this book I sincerely believed every single character was a real person in my life. I was either crying, making heart eyes, or preparing to go fight alongside them. Red, White & Royal Blue took me on the cutest adventure ever and my emotions were not prepared for all the adorable, painful, and realistic moments in is pages. Not only do I wholeheartedly recommend this novel, I also think it should be a must read. It's important, while also being the feel-good story we need.
Red, White & Royal Blue: A Novel
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars | 59,930 ratings
Price: 17.71
Last update: 01-11-2025
About this item
* GOODREADS CHOICE AWARD WINNER for BEST DEBUT and BEST ROMANCE of 2019 *
One of AudioFile Magazine's Best Audiobooks of 2019; an Instant New York Times bestseller; a *Must-Read Book* for Us Weekly, Vogue, NPR, Entertainment Weekly, Oprahmag.com, and more!
"Narrator Ramón de Ocampo brings out all the emotion in this tender, serious, funny, and warmly hopeful love story...Listeners will be swept up as Alex and Henry face questions of identity and coming out amid familial duties and political machinations." — AudioFile Magazine
What happens when America's First Son falls in love with the Prince of Wales?
When his mother became President, Alex Claremont-Diaz was promptly cast as the American equivalent of a young royal. Handsome, charismatic, genius—his image is pure millennial-marketing gold for the White House. There's only one problem: Alex has a beef with the actual prince, Henry, across the pond. And when the tabloids get hold of a photo involving an Alex-Henry altercation, U.S./British relations take a turn for the worse.
Heads of family, state, and other handlers devise a plan for damage control: staging a truce between the two rivals. What at first begins as a fake, Instragramable friendship grows deeper, and more dangerous, than either Alex or Henry could have imagined. Soon Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret romance with a surprisingly unstuffy Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations and begs the question: Can love save the world after all? Where do we find the courage, and the power, to be the people we are meant to be? And how can we learn to let our true colors shine through? Casey McQuiston's Red, White & Royal Blue proves: true love isn't always diplomatic.
Praise for Red, White & Royal Blue:
“Effervescent and empowering on all levels, Red, White & Royal Blue is both a well-written love story and a celebration of identity.” — NPR
"I took this with me wherever I went and stole every second I had to read! Absorbing, hilarious, tender, sexy—this book had everything I crave. I’m jealous of all the readers out there who still get to experience Red, White & Royal Blue for the first time!" - Christina Lauren, New York Times bestselling author of Love and Other Words and Roomies
"Red, White & Royal Blue is outrageously fun. It is romantic, sexy, witty, and thrilling. I loved every second." - Taylor Jenkins Reid, author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Maybe in Another Life
Top reviews from the United States
Carlene5.0 out of 5 stars 5 The Story we NEED Stars
D. W. Peach4.0 out of 5 stars Witty and entertaining romance with great characters
Alex is the son of the US President. Prince Henry is second in line for the British throne. And the two of them don’t get along. When an embarrassing incident causes an international stir, the two countries want the young men to pretend they’re friends. Almost against their will, Alex and Henry not only become friends, but over time, they fall in love. And as you can probably imagine, the next international stir looms ahead.
There’s a lot to like about this LGBT romance. The plot is solid – set in the political arena, which puts a great deal of external and family pressure on the young men. Messages about love, acceptance, and personal freedoms enter the mix as a natural part of the story.
Alex and Henry are likable characters, and it was easy to root for them. Secondary characters are wonderfully distinct, and many reflect the changing attitudes of the younger generation in support of loving who you love. I appreciated that the author takes plenty of time to grow the relationship between the two young men. There are pages and pages of banter via text, and it’s hysterical. I adored the sense of humor and wit that pervades the story from start to finish.
There’s also a lot of tenderness and compassion. And a lot of sex. I’m not much of a fan of erotica, no matter who’s doing it, but it's well-written and not overly graphic. In general, the book is a wonderfully written and delightful read, with great characters and endless laughs. Highly recommended.
There’s a lot to like about this LGBT romance. The plot is solid – set in the political arena, which puts a great deal of external and family pressure on the young men. Messages about love, acceptance, and personal freedoms enter the mix as a natural part of the story.
Alex and Henry are likable characters, and it was easy to root for them. Secondary characters are wonderfully distinct, and many reflect the changing attitudes of the younger generation in support of loving who you love. I appreciated that the author takes plenty of time to grow the relationship between the two young men. There are pages and pages of banter via text, and it’s hysterical. I adored the sense of humor and wit that pervades the story from start to finish.
There’s also a lot of tenderness and compassion. And a lot of sex. I’m not much of a fan of erotica, no matter who’s doing it, but it's well-written and not overly graphic. In general, the book is a wonderfully written and delightful read, with great characters and endless laughs. Highly recommended.
Philip B. Ragunton5.0 out of 5 stars “Red, White & Royal Blue”: A Remarkable Royal Gay Romantic Romp!
Author Casey McQuiston wrote this fictional gay romance novel sort of as a response to how 2016 turned out. Instead of the political and royal figureheads, we have here in the US and in the UK, we were given ones from a sort of parallel universe thereby allowing her to tell the tales of Alex and Henry. What makes this novel work so well is her character writing. The universe in which they live in is rich with details, especially the political machinations (there is some very interesting political intrigue regarding someone Alex knows) that Alex must deal with as well as the social implications that Henry, as a member of the Royal Family, must also contend with. But it is with these two characters that McQuiston pours her soul into thereby giving life to them. Even as they go on their own character arcs (especially Alex), there remains a consistency to who and what they are even as they evolve and grow as people. Even as Alex comes off as somewhat unlikeable at the beginning, by the time his feelings for Henry begin to awaken he is transformed into someone that we can at least not detest, and by we get into the last third of the book he’s someone that we’re not only rooting for, he becomes a character that we can genuinely care about. Henry is different in that he has that royal veneer about him. He’s totally pleasant as one might expect, but even as Alex starts to see his real self he immediately becomes a likable, if somewhat sad, character. McQuiston perfectly uses their growing relationship to see both of them actually begin to blossom as they discover feelings within themselves and for each other. As I read through all of this I could sense that something bad was going to happen, and lo it most certainly did. McQuiston captures the public backlash of these two getting together repeatedly for what is clearly more than just a friendly visit. First, the challenges are strictly of the heart as they each have to admit what it is they are feeling, then the challenges they face have international implications, but McQuiston continually keeps it focused on Alex and Henry in how this fallout is affecting them. It’s a masterful reminder that despite whatever position we come into, whether it is one we attain from hard work or one that we are born into, that at the end of the day we are still people and that must take precedence.
This book completely caught me by surprise. I never imagined myself reading a romance novel that wasn’t in some sort of sci-fi or fantasy genre setting, but through an unusual twist of circumstances, I discovered this book. Before reading Red, White & Royal Blue there had been only a handful of authors to cross my path whose work I would fall madly in love with, three of those being Gini Koch of the “Alien – Katherine/Kitty-Katt” series, Jonathan Latt, author of "The Geek," and more recently K.D. Edwards, author of “The Tarot Sequence” series of books, the first being "The Last Sun" (the follow-up novel "The Hanged Man" is slated to come out in December). I have read and re-read their books repeatedly because they each have created characters that I have also fallen in love with. Now I’m thrilled to say that I can add another author to that group as McQuiston has delivered a novel that I just could not put down. I never thought I would go for romance novels, even if they were of a gay nature, but her writing was so powerful that at the end of the day this book proved that what transcends genres is nothing more than just outstanding quality. Her depictions of Alex and Henry, especially as their feelings truly awoke within themselves for each other, was so beautifully written that for a time I no longer felt like an old gay man (I will soon be 58), but instead I actually felt young again and with that came the innocent feelings of hopefulness and optimism, not to mention a reminder of that emotional rush one feels when falling in love. Through Alex and Henry not only did I get to experience that all over again, but McQuiston also gave something that many hopeless romantics (yes, we gay men can also be hopeless romantics) fantasize over, and that is being swept up in love by a true Prince. It’s a theme that has existed in fairy tales for hundreds of years, and now she has given us one that we gay men can latch on to and, vicariously through Alex, experience being swept off our feet by a dashing Prince. If there is a downside to this book is that I was absolutely saddened when I got to the last page and there was no more story. Despite the fact that Alex and Henry are just fictional characters, they were so well-written and portrayed in this book that they truly became alive in my mind, and having the book come to an end felt like I had to say goodbye to them, which is something that I didn’t want to do. Just as they made each other’s lives better through their love and relationship, getting to know them in this book oddly enough made my life better. Reading their story actually made me happy, so for that, I say THANK YOU Casey McQuiston for writing a most remarkable tale. Your idea for this story that you imagined while on an I-10 off-ramp has been embraced by this old gay man who lives just off of I-10. Maybe if you should choose to write more about these two it could be told from Henry’s perspective. In the meantime, I think I will give Red, White & Royal Blue another joyous re-read!!!
This book completely caught me by surprise. I never imagined myself reading a romance novel that wasn’t in some sort of sci-fi or fantasy genre setting, but through an unusual twist of circumstances, I discovered this book. Before reading Red, White & Royal Blue there had been only a handful of authors to cross my path whose work I would fall madly in love with, three of those being Gini Koch of the “Alien – Katherine/Kitty-Katt” series, Jonathan Latt, author of "The Geek," and more recently K.D. Edwards, author of “The Tarot Sequence” series of books, the first being "The Last Sun" (the follow-up novel "The Hanged Man" is slated to come out in December). I have read and re-read their books repeatedly because they each have created characters that I have also fallen in love with. Now I’m thrilled to say that I can add another author to that group as McQuiston has delivered a novel that I just could not put down. I never thought I would go for romance novels, even if they were of a gay nature, but her writing was so powerful that at the end of the day this book proved that what transcends genres is nothing more than just outstanding quality. Her depictions of Alex and Henry, especially as their feelings truly awoke within themselves for each other, was so beautifully written that for a time I no longer felt like an old gay man (I will soon be 58), but instead I actually felt young again and with that came the innocent feelings of hopefulness and optimism, not to mention a reminder of that emotional rush one feels when falling in love. Through Alex and Henry not only did I get to experience that all over again, but McQuiston also gave something that many hopeless romantics (yes, we gay men can also be hopeless romantics) fantasize over, and that is being swept up in love by a true Prince. It’s a theme that has existed in fairy tales for hundreds of years, and now she has given us one that we gay men can latch on to and, vicariously through Alex, experience being swept off our feet by a dashing Prince. If there is a downside to this book is that I was absolutely saddened when I got to the last page and there was no more story. Despite the fact that Alex and Henry are just fictional characters, they were so well-written and portrayed in this book that they truly became alive in my mind, and having the book come to an end felt like I had to say goodbye to them, which is something that I didn’t want to do. Just as they made each other’s lives better through their love and relationship, getting to know them in this book oddly enough made my life better. Reading their story actually made me happy, so for that, I say THANK YOU Casey McQuiston for writing a most remarkable tale. Your idea for this story that you imagined while on an I-10 off-ramp has been embraced by this old gay man who lives just off of I-10. Maybe if you should choose to write more about these two it could be told from Henry’s perspective. In the meantime, I think I will give Red, White & Royal Blue another joyous re-read!!!