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Red, White & Royal Blue
Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston is $2.99! This one is probably on sale because of the recent exciting movie news and I know many of you loved this one. Aarya gave this one a C- because she found the political world building too much of a distraction.
A big-hearted romantic comedy in which the First Son falls in love with the Prince of Wales after an incident of international proportions forces them to pretend to be best friends…
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?
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The Hidden Moon
The Hidden Moon by Jeannie Lin is 99c! This is part of the Lotus Palace Mystery series. I think these can be read on their own rather than in order, but definitely let me know in the comments if that’s not the case.
A well-bred lady and lowly street hustler team up in a historical murder mystery set during China’s glittering Tang Dynasty. Part of the best-selling Lotus Palace series.
Impetuous and well-educated, young Lady Bai has always been the forgotten daughter between two favored sons. However, when Wei-wei’s older brother is tasked with investigating a high-profile assassination, he turns to his clever younger sister for assistance.
Gao is a street-wise scoundrel with a checkered past and a shady reputation. He knows better than to set his sights on the high-born Lady Bai, but when she asks for his help, he can’t refuse.
As the unlikely pair chase down a conspiracy that reaches from the gutters of the capital to the imperial palace, Wei-wei is intent on seeing justice done, while Gao is determined to solve the mystery just for her – even if the attraction between them can never be more than a moment’s longing.
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Uprooted
RECOMMENDED: Uprooted by Naomi Novik is $1.99 and a Kindle Daily Deal! A lot of people have recommended this book and Novik’s writing, but some readers did mention on Goodreads that the book is a bit slow at times. Do you love Novik’s writing? What did you think of this one?
“Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that’s not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. He protects us against the Wood, and we’re grateful, but not that grateful.”
Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life.
Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood.
The next choosing is fast approaching, and Agnieszka is afraid. She knows—everyone knows—that the Dragon will take Kasia: beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia, all the things Agnieszka isn’t, and her dearest friend in the world. And there is no way to save her.
But Agnieszka fears the wrong things. For when the Dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose.
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Desiring Lady Caro
Desiring Lady Caro by Ella Quinn is $1.99 and another KDD! This is a historical romance with a Venetian setting. Reviews on Goodreads say this is a pretty fast-paced romance and that there’s a road trip element! Though trigger warning because it seems part of the heroine’s backstory includes rape.
Haunted by her past, Lady Caroline Martindale fled England for the solace of her godmother’s palazzo in Venice. But if Caro was hoping to escape the charms of marriage-minded men, she’s come to the wrong place. And she’ll resort to extreme measures to spurn the advances of a dangerously determined Venetian marquis…
Though most of his friends have married off, Gervais, Earl of Huntley, remains bent on eluding the parson’s mousetrap. But his convictions begin to falter when he arrives in Venice and meets his match in the alluring Lady Caro. What began as a hastily concocted lie to save her from the marquis may become a chance for them both to relinquish their fear – and embrace what they can no longer deny…
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Re. Red, White & Royal Blue, strongly disagree with the political world-building being distracting. It did eventually get a little more emotionally heavy than I was looking to deal with at that point, so it’s been on pause for me—but I really enjoyed it up until that point.
Loved Uprooted! Excited it’s finally on sale.
I would say you *need* to read the prequel novella LIARS DICE for HIDDEN MOON, but you don’t need to read the first two in the series (although the first in particular does enhance THE HIDDEN MOON).
I recently re-read Uprooted and still love it. As for criticisms that it’s slow, I’d say it’s more deliberately paced. The setting does a lottt of work in this book, and the book is told in first person from the perspective of a heroine who starts with a pretty limited view of the world. The story meanders as the heroine does, but it is great in showing, not telling, with the worldbuilding for the same reason. That works very well for some people and less for others – if you like Patricia A. McKillip or Robin McKinley then you’ll probably appreciate Uprooted as well.
@Courtney M — I haven’t read Patricia A. McKillip. It looks like she writes YA? Do her books generally have romance?
I rated Red, White & Royal Blue as an A-. Like Liz, I didn’t find the political part distracting.
@Liz – I wouldn’t say her books are YA, necessarily, but they are generally appropriate for younger readers and often have protagonists that the reader is introduced to young and grow up over the course of the novel. Her books were some of the ones that I read as a young adult when I was first venturing into the Adult SFF section at the library.
It’s been a while since I’ve read something of hers, so this might not be wholly accurate: there are generally (but not always?) romance plots in her books, they are not the main plot, and while I don’t remember any of her books ending on a downer note, a happy ending for the protagonist(s) may not mean ending up together.
The Forgotten Beasts of Eld is at the top of my to be reread list, and I believe does have a romance plot fairly central to the story?
Red, White & Royal Blue blew my mind, I loved it so much. The political stuff worked very well for me, didn’t mind it at all.
My main complaint about RED, WHITE, AND ROYAL BLUE was how YOUNG the characters are compared to their actual skills, experience, and responsibility. If they’d been a bit older, I think I would have enjoyed it more. As it was, I kept having this feeling of, “WHAT are these CHILDREN doing??!?!”
I love Red, White & Royal Blue. It’s a comfort read for me and I actually find the political world that it builds to be reassuringly hopeful. Really excited for the film!
Loved the first three, haven’t read the last one.
I think RW&RB was different in the immediate aftermath of the 2016 US elections, and the if only aspect of this AU was hard for people, but now it’s like oh yes please immerse me in that fantasy.
I always read series in order so …yes, I would recommend that, lol. It’s possible to read it as a standalone no doubt but the whole series is so good it seems like you’re limiting your enjoyment twofold if you don’t read the earlier ones.
I didn’t find Uprooted slow.
The Hidden Moon is a steal! This series is so beautifully written, and while I do think you could read this as a stand-alone, as @Pear said, reading at least Liar’s Dice would make the Gao and Wei-wei’s story even richer.
@Liz: Patricia McKillip writes fantasy, not romance, so the expectations would be different. I would not classify her as YA. There is a romance at the heart of her Riddle of Stars trilogy, which I re-read on a regular basis. And I think her books have some of the best covers ever.
Red White and Royal Blue was a DNF for me – and I am a huge MM fan, but I remember finding the American MC to have a very superior/judgey attitude that really rubbed me wrong in the beginning and I could not get past it… recommend doing a sample first! But I also generally do not like enemies to lovers plots (with a few exceptions like Boyfriend Material), so if that is your jam this might work for you.
I enjoyed Uprooted for the heroine, but found the hero to be kind of a dud. Spinning Silver is a far superior read for me.
However, if fairy take retellings are your jam, Ann Aguirre’s been doing some interesting things with Bitterburn and Mirror, Mirror.
And RW&RB was not something I could have read in 2016, but I enjoyed it very much last year when I finally read it. It is heavier than you might expect from there cover and discussion.
A few more sales: Mimi Matthews’ Victorian romance The Lost Letter is FREE, Jayce Ellis’ Black M/M romance If You Love Something is 1.99, and Disability Visibility, the disability anthology edited by Alice Wong is 1.99!
I actually just finished The Hidden Moon today! It’s my favorite of the series (though I think I have one more to go). As others have said, The Liars Dice gives good context, but be warned that it is in first person (I don’t love first person narration, personally, and as it is a set-up novella there’s also of course not a resolved romantic arc.)
Got very excited about Red, White, and Royal Blue, then opened my ereader and realized I already bought it (not too long ago, so either it’s gone on sale twice or has been on sale for a little while).
I adored RWRB but I did it in audiobook (and LOVED the narrator) and I listened to it post-2020 election. I think it would’ve been a different thing if I’d read it right when it came out, as it reimagines the 2016 election, and that would’ve been very hard for me to get into in that moment. My only quibble with the politics was that I thought those parts of the plot took too many pages of the story, it ends up being a rather long book, and I really enjoyed the romance and friendship parts much more than the political stuff. Agree with the comments that the young adults in the story (other than Henry) seem to have professional experiences that don’t match what would be realistic, though what do I know about what well-connected politico kids get to do in their day jobs at 22 that the rest of us can only dream of! Anyway Prince Henry is adorable and it’s worth it just for him. The book is sweet and funny and sexy and captures that buzz of young love so well.
I love Uprooted but I don’t think of it as a romance, really.
Uprooted is “slow”? “Terrifying (in parts) but terrific” is how I’d describe it.
I bought RWRB the day it came out and read it over the course of 4 days because I didn’t want it to end. It was my favorite book of 2019 and it absolutely the balm I needed. It is a very time-bound book in the sense that it is very of its moment, which might not hold up very well in 5 or 10 years, but it was exactly what I (and a lot of other readers) needed at just the right time. I reread it recently and found it just as wonderful and comforting as before, except now the comfort isn’t needed because of who is in the White House, but because of its positive message of queer love and acceptance at a time when certain people are doing everything they can to roll back the clock and shove queer and transgender people back in closets.
(Also, Amy is and will always be my favorite Secret Service agent and I wish she’d had a larger role in the story – she has a bullet-proof craft case and has been known to stab people in the knee with her knitting needles if the situation called for it.)
I haven’t finished Uprooted yet having started it a couple of years ago. I stopped at a point the heroine is about to do something she has been explicitly told will be fatal, is always fatal, but she’s going to do it anyway. It just felt as if she was willfully ignoring what she had been told, and to me that came across as TSTL; as she is the heroine I am sure she survived. However as she hadn’t endeared herself to me by that point I gave up. I’m not saying I’ll never finish it, but I haven’t been moed to yet. I haven’t managed to finish anything I’ve tried by Naomi Novak, so take what I’ve said with that in mind.
@ Jazzlet
Maybe Novik isn’t a good author for you. Tastes vary.
The heroine in Uprooted isn’t too stupid to live – she’s in a life-or-death situation throughout the book, so has little to lose by taking risks, and one of its themes is how “what everyone always said was true” isn’t, or maybe isn’t for women. KADIR has a similar arc in the book. Novik is not a champion of orthodoxy for orthodoxy’s sake.
One of my favorite themes in this book – and others by Novik – is the joy of work well done in one’s own way.
Argh, Kasia, not KADIR (who they?).