Casey McQuiston



Casey McQuiston (born January 21, 1991) is an American author of romance novels in the new adult fiction genre, best known for their New York Times best-selling debut novel Red, White & Royal Blue, in which the son of America's first female president falls in love with a prince of England, and sophomore book One Last Stop.

Red, White & Royal Blue (2019)

 * New York: St. Martin's Griffin. All quotes are from the 2019 hardcover first edition.


 * It's not a grudge, really. It's not even a rivalry. It's a prickling, unsettling annoyance. It makes his palms sweat. The tabloids- the world- decided to cast Alex as the American equivalent of Prince Henry from day one, since the White House Trio is the closest thing America has to royalty. It has never seemed fair. Alex's image is all charisma and genius and smirking wit, thoughtful interviews and the cover of GQ at eighteen; Henry's is placid smiles and gentle chivalry and generic charity appearances, a perfectly blank Prince Charming canvas. Henry's role, Alex thinks, is much easier to play. Maybe it is technically a rivalry. Whatever.
 * p. 10


 * She tosses the magazine aside, folding her arms on the table. "Please, tell me another joke," Ellen says. "I want so badly for you to explain to me how this is funny." Alex opens his mouth and closes it a couple of times. "He started it," he says finally. "I barely touched him- and he's the one who pushed me, and I only grabbed him to try and catch my balance and-" "Sugar, I cannot express to you how much the press does not give a fuck about who started what," Ellen says. "As your mother, I can appreciate that maybe this isn't your fault, but as the president, all I want is to have the CIA fake your death and ride the dead-kid sympathy into a second term."
 * p. 20


 * Alex clenches his jaw. He's used to doing things that piss his mother off- in his teens, he had a penchant for confronting his mother's cilleagues with their voting discrepancies at friendly DC fundraisers- and he's been in the tabloids for things more embarrassing than this. But never in quite such a cataclysmically, internationally terrible way. "I don't have time to deal with this right now, so here's what we're gonna do," Ellen says, pulling a folder out of her padfolio. It's filtered with some official-looking documents punctuated with different colors of sticky tabs, and the first one says: AGREEMENT OF TERMS. "Um," Alex says. "You," Ellen says, "are going to make nice with Henry." You're leaving Saturday and spending Sunday in England." Alex blinks. "Is it too late to take the faking-my-death option?" "Zahra can brief you on the rest," Ellen goes on, ignoring him. "I have about five hundred meetings right now." She gets up and heads for the door, stopping to kiss her hand and press it to the top of her head. "You're a dumbass. Love you."
 * p. 20


 * Outside Kensington Palace, Alex takes Henry's phone out of his hand and swiftly opens a blank contact page before he can protest or sic a PPO on him for violating royal property. The car is waiting to take him back to the royals' private airstrip. "Here," Alex says. "That's my number. If we're gonna keep this up, it's going to get annoying to keep going through handlers. Just text me. We'll figure it out." Henry stares at him, expression blankly bewildered, and Alex wonders how this guy has any friends. "Right," Henry says. "Thank you." "No booty calls," Alex tells him, and Henry chokes on a laugh.
 * p. 46


 * Alex wouldn't say he likes Henry, but he does enjoy the quick rhythm of arguments they fall into. He knows he talks too much, hopeless at moderating his feelings, which he usually hides under ten layers of charm, but he ultimately doesn't care what Henry thinks of him, so he doesn't bother. Instead, he's as weird and manic as he wants to be, and Henry jabs back in sharp flashes of startling wit.
 * p. 60


 * "That's not your emails-from-Zahra face," Nora says, nosing her way over his shoulder. He elbows her away. "You keep doing that stupid smile every time you look at your phone. Who are you texting?" "I don't know what you're talking about, and literally no one," Alex tells her. From the screen in his hand, Henry's message reads, In world's most boring meeting with Philip. Don't let the papers print lies about me after I've garroted myself with my tie.
 * p. 63


 * Alex rolls his eyes and sends back, the harrowing struggle of managing the empire's blood money. Henry's response comes a minute later. That was actually the crux of the meeting- I've tried to refuse my share of the crown's money. Dad left us each with more than enough, and I'd rather cover my expenses with that than the spoils of, you know, centuries of genocide. Philip thinks I'm being ridiculous. Alex scans the message twice to make sure he's read it correctly. i am low-key impressed. He stares at the screen, at his own message, for a few seconds too long, suddenly afraid it was a stupid thing to say. He shakes his head and puts the phone down. Locks it. Changes his mind, picks it up again. Unlocks it. Sees the little typing bubble on Henry's side of the conversation. Puts the phone down. Looks away. Looks back. One does not foster a lifelong love of Star Wars without knowing an "empire" isn't a good thing. He would really appreciate it if Henry would stop proving him wrong.
 * p. 64


 * "It's public knowledge. It's not my problem you just found out," his mother is saying, pacing double-time down a West Wing corridor. "You mean to tell me," Alex half shouts, jogging to keep up, "every Thanksgiving, those stupid turkeys have been staying in a luxury suite at the Willard on the taxpayers' dime?" "Yes, Alex, they do-" "Gross government waste!" "-and there are two forty-pound turkeys named Cornbread and Stuffing in a motorcade on Pennsylvania Avenue right now. There is no time to reallocate the turkeys." Without missing a beat, he blurts out, "Bring them to the house." "Where? Are you hiding a turkey habitat up your ass, son? Where, in our historically protected house, am I going to put a couple of turkeys until I pardon them tomorrow?" "Put them in my room. I don't care." She outright laughs. "No." "How is it different from a hotel room? Put the turkeys in my room, Mom." "I'm not putting turkeys in your room." "Put the turkeys in my room." "No." "Put them in my room, put them in my room, put them in my room, put them in my room-" That night, as Alex stares into the cold, pitiless eyes of a prehistoric beast of prey, he has a few regrets.
 * p. 66-67


 * Even before Alex's parents split, they both had a habit of calling him by the other's last name when he exhibited particular traits. They still do. When he runs his mouth off to the press, his mom calls him into her office and says, "Get your shit together, Diaz." When his hard-headedness gets him stuck, his dad texts him, "Let it go, Claremont."
 * p. 74


 * "I was hoping you two would start talking dirty," Pez says. "Please, do go on." "I don't think you could keep up, Pez," Alex tells him. "Oh really?" The picture returns to Pez. "What if I put my co-" "Pez," comes the sound of Henry's voice, and a hand with a signet ring on the smallest finger covers Pez's mouth. "I beg of you. Alex, what part of 'nothing he cannot do' did you think was worth testing? Honestly, you are going to get us all killed." "That's the goal," Alex says happily. "So what are y'all gonna do today?" Pez frees himself by licking Henry's palm and continues talking. "Frolic naked in the hills, frighten the sheep, return to the house for the usual: tea, biscuits, casting ourselves upon the Thighmaster of love to moan about Claremont-Diaz siblings, which has become tragically one-sided since Henry took up with you. It used to be all bottles of cognac and shared malaise and 'When will they notice us'-" "Don't tell him that!" "-and now I just ask Henry, 'What is your secret?' And he says, 'I insult Alex all the time and that seems to work.'" "I will turn this car around."
 * p. 160-161


 * All in all, finals come and go with much less fanfare than Alex imagined. It's a week of cramming and presentations and the usual amount of all-nighters, and it's over. The whole college thing in general went by like that. He didn't really have the experiences everyone else has, always isolated by fame or harangued by security. He never got a stamp on his forehead on his twenty-first birthday at the Tombs, never jumped in Dahlgren Fountain. Sometimes it's like he barely went to Georgetown, merely powered through a series of lectures that happened to be in the same geographical area.
 * p. 161


 * "So, as I've warned you," Henry says as they approach the doors to the Royal Box, "Philip will be there. And assorted other nobility with whom you may have to make conversation. People named Basil." "I think I've proven that I can handle royals." Henry looks doubtful. "You're brave. I could use some of that."
 * p. 184


 * "Just so we're clear," Alex says, "I'm about to have sex with you in this storage closet to spite your family. Like, that's what's happening?" Henry, who has apparently been carrying his travel-size lube with him this entire time in his jacket, says, "Right," and tosses it over his shoulder. "Awesome, fuckin' love doing things out of spite," he says without a hint of sarcasm, and he kicks Henry's feet apart. And it should be- it should be funny. It should be hot, stupid, ridiculous, obscene, another wild sexual adventure to add to the list. And it is, but... it shouldn't also feel like last time, like Alex might die if it ever stops. There's a laugh in his mouth, but it won't get past his tongue, because he knows this is him helping Henry get through something. Rebellion. You're brave. I could use some of that.
 * p. 188


 * "Someone else's choice doesn't change who you are."
 * p. 198


 * Alex groans. "Please, for the love of God, do not ask me. I'm on vacation. I want to get drunk and eat barbecue in peace." His dad laughs ruefully. "You know, in a lot of ways, your mom and me were a stupid idea. I think we both knew it wouldn't be forever. We're both too fucking proud. But God, that woman. Your mother is, without question, the love of my life. I'll never love anyone else like her. It was wildfire. And I got you and June out of it, best things that ever happened to an old asshole lke me. That kind of love is rare, even if it was a complete disaster." He sucks his teeth, considering. "Sometimes you just jump and hope it's not a cliff."
 * p. 221


 * "Well. It will matter, you know. It will always matter."
 * p. 226


 * "Get some shoes, we're running," Zahra tells him. "Priority one is damage control, not feelings. He grabs a pair of sneakers, and they take off while he's still pulling them on, running west. His brain is struggling to keep up, running through about five thousand possible ways this could go, imagining himself ten years down the road being frozen out of Congress, plummeting approval ratings, Henry's name being scratched off the line of succession, his mother losing reelection on a swing state's disapproval of him. He's so screwed, and he can't even decide who to be the angriest with, himself or the Mail or the monarchy or the whole stupid country. He nearly crashes into Zahra's back as she skids to a stop in front of a door. He pushes the door open, and the whole room goes silent. His mother stares at him from the head of the table and says flatly, "Out." At first he thinks she's talking to him, but she cuts her eyes down to the people around the table with her. "Was I not clear? Everyone, out, now," she says. "I need to talk to my son."
 * p. 280-281


 * "You listen to me," she says. Her jaw is set, ironclad. It's the game face he's seen her use to stare down Congress, to cow autocrats. Her grip on his hand is steady and strong. He wonders, half-hysterically, if this is how it felt to charge into war under Washington. "I am your mother. I was your mother before I was ever the president, and I'll be your mother long after, to the day they put me in the ground and beyond this earth. You are my child. So, if you're serious about this, I'll back your play." Alex is silent. But the debates, he thinks. But the general. Her gaze is hard. He knows better than to say either of those things. She'll handle it. "So," she says, "Do you feel forever about him?" And there's no room left to agonize over it, nothing left to do but say the thing he's known all along. "Yeah," he says, "I do." Ellen Claremont exhales slowly, and she grins a small, secret grin, the crooked, flattering one she never uses in public, the one he knows best from when he was a kid around her knees in a small kitchen in Travis County. "Then, fuck it."
 * p. 283


 * Shaan lookes like he hasn't slept in thirty-six hours. Well, he looks perfectly composed and groomed, but the tag is sticking out of his sweater and the strong smell of whiskey is emanating from his tea. Next to him, in the back of the incognito van they're taking to Buckingham Palace, Zahra has her arms folded resolutely. The engagement ring on her left hand glints in the muted London morning. "So, uh," Alex attempts. "Are you two in a fight now?" Zahra looks at him. "No. Why would you think that?" "Oh. I just thought because-" "It's fine," Shaan says, still typing on his iPhone. "This is why we set rules about the personal-slash-professional lines at the outset of this relationship. It works for us." "If you want a fight, you should have seen it when I found out he had known about you two all along," Zahra says. "Why do you think I got a rock this big?" "It usually works for us," Shaan amends. "Yep," Zahra agrees. "Plus, we banged it out last night." Without looking up, Shaan meets her hand in a high five.
 * p. 300-301


 * Today, Henry goes back to London. Today, Alex goes back to the campaign trail. They have to figure out how to do this for real now, how to love each other in plain sight. Alex thinks they're up for it.
 * p. 333


 * There are no fireworks out here, no music, no confetti. Just sleeping, single-family homes, TVs switched off. Just a house where Alex grew up, where he saw Henry's picture in a magazine and felt a flicker of something, a start. "Hey," Alex says. Henry turns back to him, his eyes silver in the wash of the streetlight. "We won." Henry takes his hand, one corner of his mouth tugging gently upward. "Yeah. We won." Alex reaches down into the front of his dress shirt and finds the chain with his fingers, pulls it out carefully. The ring, the key. Under winter clouds, victorious, he unlocks the door.
 * p. 361


 * Go outside, stay safe, be gay. Have a Shiner on me.
 * Acknowledgements, p. 364

I Kissed Shara Wheeler (2022)

 * New York: Wednesday Books. All quotes are from the 2022 hardcover first edition.


 * Chloe Green is going to put her first through a window. Usually when she has a thought like that, it means she's spiritually on the brink. But right now, squared up to the back door of the Wheeler house, she's actually physically ready to do it. Her phone flashes the time: 11:27 a.m. Thirty-three minutes until the end of the late service at Willowgrove Christian Church, where the Wheelers are spending their morning pretending to be nice, normal folks whose nice, normal daughter didn't stage a disappearing act at prom twelve hours ago. It has to be an act, is the thing. Obviously, Shara Wheeler is fine. Shara Wheeler is not missing. Shara Wheeler is doing what she does: a doe-eyed performance of blank innocence that makes everyone think she must be so deep and complex and enchanting when really, she's the most boring bore in this entire unbearably boring town. Chloe is going to prove it. Because she's the only one smart enough to see it.
 * p. 1