Where to Start with Casey McQuiston: A Reading Guide
Where to start with Casey McQuiston — whether to begin with Red, White & Royal Blue or One Last Stop. A complete reading guide to the romance author.
Casey McQuiston (born 1993) is the American romance novelist whose debut Red, White & Royal Blue (2019) — a queer romance about the bisexual son of the first female US President and a British prince — became one of the most celebrated romance debuts of the decade, winning the Alex Award and the RITA Award and demonstrating that queer romance with explicit political content could find an enormous mainstream readership. McQuiston’s novels are notable for their warmth, their political optimism, and their unapologetic queerness; they write about LGBTQ+ lives with the same ease and fullness that straight romance writes about heterosexual lives, and the response from readers who had not previously found themselves represented in the romance genre has been significant.
Where to Start: Red, White & Royal Blue (2019)
The essential McQuiston — and one of the most joyful debut romance novels of its generation. Alex Claremont-Diaz is the son of Ellen Claremont, President of the United States, and he has always disliked Prince Henry of England on principle — too perfect, too composed, too English. When a diplomatic incident requires them to perform a public friendship, Alex is furious. But Henry is different in private than in public. And Alex, who has always identified as straight, begins to discover things about himself.
The novel operates in a vividly imagined alternate America: a US where a progressive woman is President, where the political battles are recognisable but the outcomes are not yet settled, where politics is the air that Alex breathes and that his relationship with Henry becomes entangled with. McQuiston’s political detail is specific and enjoyable; the romance is warm and funny and builds genuinely.
The novel’s emotional argument — that being seen fully by another person, in all your contradictions, is what love makes possible — is made through the email correspondence between Alex and Henry, which is the novel’s most technically accomplished section.
One Last Stop (2021)
McQuiston’s second novel — a queer romance with magical realism, set in contemporary New York. Warmer and more quietly nostalgic than Red, White & Royal Blue; a strong standalone for readers who want more.
Reading Casey McQuiston
Begin with Red, White & Royal Blue — it is her essential novel and the most immediately joyful entry point to her work. Read One Last Stop when you want her with a lighter political register and more magic.
For the full Casey McQuiston bibliography, reviews, and biography, visit the Casey McQuiston author page on Editors Reads.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where should I start with Casey McQuiston?
Red, White & Royal Blue (2019) is the essential starting point — McQuiston's debut novel about Alex Claremont-Diaz, the bisexual son of the first female US President, and Prince Henry of England, who begin as rivals forced into a fake friendship for diplomatic reasons and fall into a secret relationship that threatens both their public roles. A hugely popular queer romance that balances political comedy, cultural commentary, and genuine emotional depth.
What is Red, White & Royal Blue about?
Red, White & Royal Blue is set in an alternate present where a Democratic woman is President of the United States. Her son Alex — charismatic, politically ambitious, and initially convinced he is straight — and Prince Henry of England create an international incident, are forced into a PR friendship, and gradually fall in love over emails, secret visits, and a growing inability to pretend their feelings aren't real. The novel's political optimism (it imagines a world where things could be better) is as much a part of its appeal as the romance.
What is One Last Stop about?
One Last Stop (2021) is McQuiston's second novel — August Landry moves to New York and meets Jane, a beautiful, magnetic woman trapped in time on the Q train, who has been living in the same moment in 1977 for forty years. August falls in love with her and tries to figure out how to unstick Jane from the past. A queer romance with magical realism elements; warmer and more nostalgic in tone than Red, White & Royal Blue.
Are McQuiston's books appropriate for younger readers?
McQuiston's books are adult romance novels with explicit content and are not intended for younger readers. Both Red, White & Royal Blue and One Last Stop are New Adult/adult novels with significant sexual content. The political and cultural content in Red, White & Royal Blue assumes a reader who can engage with US and UK political systems; the magical realism in One Last Stop assumes a reader comfortable with speculative elements in contemporary fiction.
