Book: Red, White & Royal Blue

Genre: Romance/Rom-Com

Rating: 5/5 Stars

My amazing husband bought me this book last year, but me, being the foolish person I am, put it on my shelf and forgot about it… Thankfully, I remembered this amazing book recently and decided to listen to it through my library on Libby. This book made me laugh, cry and feel all the feels.

First up, before I get into my review more, here is the summary of the book:

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. Alex is busy enough handling his mother’s bloodthirsty opponents and his own political ambitions without an uptight royal slowing him down. But beneath Henry’s Prince Charming veneer, there’s a soft-hearted eccentric with a dry sense of humor and more than one ghost haunting him.

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. And Henry throws everything into question for Alex, an impulsive, charming guy who thought he knew everything: What is worth the sacrifice? How do you do all the good you can do? And, most importantly, how will history remember you? 

This book hit everything I love in a good romance and those are the things I want to touch on. It had an amazing plot/characters, was incredibly relevant and had a love story for the ages.

So, the first thing that I adored right from the beginning was the plot and its characters. The main two characters, Henry and Alex, steal your heart right from the get go, but the other supporting characters add so much to this story as well. Their journey as enemies turned lovers and how their relationship ties into the plot and the current state of the world was eye opening, heart breaking and beautiful.

That leads me into the second thing I loved, the relevance of this book. This book deals with main characters, one gay and one bi. Their story and their struggles are some that I see daily through social media or my own friends. On top that, the political aspect of this was so incredibly relevant to our own political crisis in this country. Reading the politics of this fake yet very real version of the US made me reflect on our own political climate and the positives and negatives to everything with that.

Even though that part of the book may have stressed me out a bit, the love story brought me back top a happy place. This was a beautifully written love story, with so much heart and passion. The reading can’t help but feel empathy for the struggles that Henry and Alex face and how they work to overcome everything that is thrown in their path. From pushy royal to paparazzi, these two lovers overcome the odds and I was there for it!

Overall, this was such a solid read for me and my only regret is that I didn’t read it sooner!

Happy reading!