Red White & Royal Blue By Casey Mcquiston

Synopsis/Summary:

First Son Alex Claremont-Diaz is the closest thing to a prince this side of the Atlantic. With his intrepid sister and the Veep’s genius granddaughter, they’re the White House Trio, a beautiful millennial marketing strategy for his mother, President Ellen Claremont. International socialite duties do have downsides—namely, when photos of a confrontation with his longtime nemesis Prince Henry at a royal wedding leak to the tabloids and threaten American/British relations. The plan for damage control: staging a fake friendship between the First Son and the Prince.

As President Claremont kicks off her reelection bid, Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret relationship with Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations.

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⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

I believe that with the bookcover only, you will be hooked right away, but if that is not enough, I am going to tell you the reasons why you should pick this one up.

This standalone novel follows Alex Claremont-Diaz, the First Son of the United States. Alex hates Prince Henry of England and it seems this hatred is reciprocated. But if we, readers, know something for a fact, it is that there's a fine line between love and hate, something that these two boys will end up finding out. Still, there is so much more to this story: there are politics and expectations, there are prejudices and appearances to keep up. There are nations at stake.

Usually, books that contain romance tend to focus on a straight couple and sometimes, only sometimes, add LGBT characters as secondary ones (I can’t tell you how mad I get every time the GBF trope is introduced). I think this book is the best representation of a well-executed gay couple as the main protagonists. While reading the novel you will find yourself trapped in their love story and see how they slowly start creating their history. Something that I loved was that it had a little bit of enemies-to-lovers and in my opinion, the small amount of it, was really well developed. You can understand how Alex hated Henry out of envy and, as their relationship kicks off, you can appreciate how all that hatred and envy is still there and does not vanish from one second to another. In each text they send and word they speak you see the transition from what once was hate and is now love. To clarify; do not expect a real enemy-to-lovers where the protagonists spend half of the book hating each other or wanting to kill each other because that is not the main problem of the story and you will not find that in this special book. What you will find is an invitation to let go of the preconceptions you might have against others, since you might have more in common than you expected. You will learn that first, you have to know a person in order to criticize them. That you don’t have to let society put barriers between what you have to do and what you want to do. That you have to fight for what you desire and hold on to that until you accomplish it and only then will you finally be happy.

Additionally, this story was a vice. I could not put the book down I wanted to read until my eyes got closed from tiredness. I don’t know what it was; if their love story, the political problems, the friendships established or the eagerness I felt to find out how they kept this secret and for how long they would keep it, but what I do know is that in less than two days this book was finished and back on my shelf.

Even though I really really enjoyed the novel with the plot and characters included, I do not recommend it for everyone. Readers from 13 years old and under, sorry but I don’t believe this book will be the most suitable for your liking. It contains political stuff that you most probably will not understand (imagine that I found it hard to understand it myself and I am 15 years old) and well… also the spicy scenes :) Apart from that, readers, I think this book has to be a must on everyone else’s TBR.