Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

 Thursday, July 14, 2022--San Antonio

Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston is in a unique situation as a novel.  It has had very good reviews as a top novel of the year (which is how I learned about it), has been a New York Times best seller, and has already had its film rights acquired with the actors announced who will play the two main leads.  Yet it is currently only available on the Kindle at  Amazon (and I had to put it on hold at my local library for about 10 weeks before it was delivered that way to me)!  It will be published in hardcover in October with Amazon already selling reserved copies.  It is a light romance story about two young men--one the son of the President of the USA and the other the "spare" heir to the crown of England (3rd in line behind his mother and his older brother)--whose antagonism against each other has created negative publicity.  They forced by their families to be together on a publicity tour to try to quiet rumors by acting as if the stories are made up and that they truly are friends.  Things don't go the way they are planned, and the two begin to become aware of why they have resented and disliked each other which eventually leads to more negative stories and a bigger disruption of their families that could affect politics in both countries.  It was fun to read the book, and I often stayed awake longer than I would prefer to read a bit more before turning out the lights and going to bed.  In general as a novel, I would give it 4 stars out of 5, but as a romance it is a bit better than average, so I would give it 4 1/2 stars out of 5.