The 10 Books Like Red, White & Royal Blue

If you loved Red, White & Royal Blue, the books you’re looking for share its electric mix of enemies-to-lovers tension, queer identity, witty banter, and high-stakes romance. This guide cuts through the noise and points you to the reads that will actually satisfy that very specific hunger only Casey McQuiston’s debut managed to create.

Let me be direct: most “similar books” lists recycle the same ten titles without examining why those books hit. This one is different. I’ve thought carefully about what makes Red, White & Royal Blue tick, and I’ll match each recommendation to something real about the reading experience.

Why Red, White & Royal Blue Still Matters

Casey McQuiston’s debut novel was originally published on May 14, 2019, by St. Martin’s Griffin. The film adaptation arrived on August 11, 2023. And yet here we are in 2026, and people are still typing “books like Red White and Royal Blue” into search bars every single day. That tells you something.

The novel debuted at number three on the New York Times bestseller list and won the Goodreads Choice Awards for both Best Romance and Best Debut Novel in 2019. It currently holds over one million ratings on Goodreads, with an average of 4.05 stars. For a debut romance novel to achieve that kind of reach is genuinely rare.

McQuiston won the Best Debut Novel and Best Romance Novel categories in the 11th Annual Goodreads Choice Awards, making Red, White & Royal Blue the only novel to win in two categories that year. That’s not a coincidence. It’s a book that does two things well simultaneously: it’s a page-turning romance and a quiet piece of cultural advocacy.

The LA Review of Books considered McQuiston’s story a work of literary activism, addressing topics such as heteronormativity and the concealment of identity. Additionally, readers of Red, White & Royal Blue felt the book was a way to assimilate queer relationships into the cliché of “cheesy” romance novels — a form of protest that highlighted queer people as a community capable of experiencing both frivolous and heart-wrenching love stories.

That double function is the hardest thing to replicate. A lot of books on this topic try to be Important. McQuiston wrote one that was genuinely fun first, and the importance sneaked up on you somewhere around chapter nine. That’s the bar every recommendation in this list is being held to.

What You’re Actually Craving (And What to Look For)

Before diving into the titles, it helps to name what’s working when RWRB works. The book succeeds because of a very specific cocktail: fake friendship that becomes real intimacy, high-status settings that feel surprisingly human, sharp banter, and a romance that carries real political weight. It’s also, at its core, a story about two young men figuring out who they are while the whole world watches.

RWRB also carries something rarer: hope. McQuiston has spoken about writing stories that would have made them feel less isolated as a queer teenager. That generosity toward the reader is something you can feel on every page, and it’s something I look for in every recommendation below.

Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall

The closest spiritual match to RWRB currently in print.

If I had to hand one book to a reader who just finished Red, White & Royal Blue and was standing in the middle of a bookstore, it would be this one without a second’s hesitation.

Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall has many of the same elements as RWRB. It’s a queer love story between two men, features a famous character surrounded by the limelight, and it’s very much an opposites-attract romance. The story follows Luc O’Donnell, who is the son of a famous rock star.

What Hall does with Luc and Oliver is surgical. The banter is some of the sharpest in contemporary romance, and underneath all the jokes is genuine emotional excavation. Luc’s damage is real; Oliver’s stiffness hides something tender. The fake-dating structure means every scene carries two layers of meaning. Boyfriend Material has the same emotional architecture as RWRB while building something that’s distinctly its own.

The book also avoids what I’ll call the “queer utopia problem.” RWRB is notably idealistic, which is part of its charm and part of why certain critics pushed back. Hall’s novel operates in a messier, more recognizably real London, which gives it a different emotional register. You’ll laugh harder, but you’ll also wince more. A sequel, Husband Material, continues Luc and Oliver’s story if you’re not ready to leave them.

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

For readers who want the intensity of hidden feelings and layered identity.

There’s a scene in Carry On that has lived rent-free in my brain since 2015. That’s a long time for a book to hold real estate in a person’s head, and it speaks to what Rowell does at her best: she makes you feel the exact texture of longing.

Simon Snow is the “Chosen One” of his magical world, and he has despised his roommate Baz for years. Baz is cold, possibly evil, and almost certainly a vampire. The slow collapse of that hatred into something else is written with the kind of precision that makes you put the book down and just sit for a moment.

This book shares with RWRB the specific pleasure of watching two people who’ve built elaborate walls around themselves slowly, inevitably, tear them down. The magical-school setting is distinct, but the emotional beats are immediately recognizable to anyone who fell for Alex and Henry. It’s witty, it’s sweeping, and it has one of the great romantic gestures in recent fiction. Wayward Son and Any Way the Wind Blows continue the story, though most readers agree nothing quite matches the first.

The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun

For readers who want the same emotional depth with a TV production backdrop.

There may be no royalty in The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun, but it covers mental illness extremely well. The story follows Dev Deshpande, who works on a Bachelor-style show, and Charlie Winshaw, a tech genius who is the newest bachelor but also happens not to believe in love.

What Cochrun does that very few romance writers manage is write about mental health without making it a teaching moment. Charlie’s anxiety and depression are part of his character the way any trait is. Dev’s own struggle with his romantic idealism has its own weight. The result is a love story where both people are genuinely complicated, and the romance earns every beat rather than coasting on charm.

If RWRB gave you the fantasy of watching someone discover themselves under the world’s spotlight, The Charm Offensive gives you that same energy with the added complexity of two men who each have real psychological work to do. It’s a harder read in the best possible way.

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston

For when you want more McQuiston, full stop.

This one is almost cheating, but I’d be doing you a disservice by leaving it off. If you loved RWRB and haven’t read McQuiston’s follow-up, that’s the first thing you should fix.

One Last Stop has been placed sixth on the BookPage top ten romance novels of 2021. The book was also nominated for the Goodreads Choice Awards for best romance of 2021, placing third.

August doesn’t believe in cinematic love stories, and then she meets Jane on the subway, who is, inconveniently, stuck in time from the 1970s. What follows is a sapphic time-travel romance that has the same political warmth and found-family joy as RWRB, with a nostalgic, queer-history dimension that gives it its own distinct emotional weight. McQuiston’s prose voice is unmistakable here, sharp and funny and quietly earnest in the same breath. If RWRB was love in the corridors of power, One Last Stop is love in the underground, among regular people trying to live fully.

The Pairing by Casey McQuiston

McQuiston’s most recent adult novel, published August 2024, and criminally underread.

The Pairing, published on August 6, 2024, follows estranged bisexual exes Kit and Theo when they end up on the same European food and wine tour.

The book has a different energy from RWRB — more knowing, more sensory, more European in its pleasures — but McQuiston’s signature warmth is all over it. There’s something quietly brave about writing a romance that starts not with meeting but with the aftermath of love that already happened, and then asking whether it can happen again. If you’ve ever had feelings for someone you thought you were done with, you may need a moment alone after finishing this one. The food and wine setting is also legitimately transporting in a way I wasn’t prepared for.

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee

For readers who want historical sweep with queer heart.

Monty Montague is a bi rake in 18th-century Europe, and he’s about to set off on a Grand Tour with the boy he’s in love with who doesn’t love him back, or so Monty thinks. What follows is an adventure novel and a love story and a surprisingly sharp exploration of what it means to be queer in an era that has no language for what you are.

This book shares with RWRB the sense of history being made at the personal scale. Both novels take large, high-status settings and drill down into the very particular terror and joy of falling in love when the world isn’t sure it approves. Lee’s prose has wit and propulsion, and the supporting cast is exceptional. It’s also the first in a series, which is the best possible news if you need more.

I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston

For readers who want something younger and sharper-edged.

McQuiston’s I Kissed Shara Wheeler was released on May 3, 2022. It is their first for the young adult age group and is a rom-com set in a Christian high school in Alabama. The book follows Chloe Green after she moves from SoCal to Willowgrove Christian Academy. Her rivalry for valedictorian with Shara Wheeler leads to a kiss before Shara vanishes.

Yes, it’s YA, and yes, it’s a different register than RWRB. But if part of what you loved about RWRB was the wit, the ensemble cast, and the way identity doesn’t arrive with a neat label, this delivers all three in abundance. The mystery structure gives the book forward propulsion, and McQuiston’s ear for how teenagers actually talk has genuinely improved since their debut. I Kissed Shara Wheeler was listed as a Stonewall Honor Book for Children and Young Adult Literature in 2023.

Beach Read by Emily Henry

For readers who want the banter-to-emotional-devastation pipeline without the queer content.

I know this list is largely about queer romance, but RWRB had a large straight readership too, and a lot of what made it work — the enemies-to-lovers structure, the wit, the slow revelation of vulnerability — is Emily Henry’s stock-in-trade. Beach Read features two romance-versus-literary-fiction rivals who make a writing bet and fall for each other in the process.

Henry is currently the dominant force in mainstream romance for a reason: she understands that the real engine of any love story isn’t attraction but recognition. Two people seeing each other clearly, often uncomfortably so. If you can overlook the lack of queer content, Beach Read scratches an overlapping itch and may pull you into Henry’s entire back catalogue.

Heartstopper by Alice Oseman (Graphic Novel Series)

For readers who want the emotional core of RWRB in a different format.

Readers who enjoyed Red, White & Royal Blue on Goodreads consistently gravitated toward Heartstopper, drawn by its boy-meets-boy structure and the way both stories depict friendship that becomes something deeper.

Oseman’s graphic novel series about Nick and Charlie is deceptively simple in its visual language and genuinely complex in its emotional intelligence. The Netflix adaptation introduced it to a huge audience, but the books are richer in ways adaptations rarely are. If RWRB gave you the feeling of watching two people become more themselves through love, Heartstopper delivers that same gift with extraordinary economy. These books are not for young adults only; they’re for anyone who could use a reminder of what tenderness looks like.

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

For readers who want the weight of history and the devastation of love at cost.

This is the tonal outlier on the list, and I’ve included it deliberately. RWRB ends in hope, but part of what gives the middle of the book its power is the genuine possibility that things could go badly. Miller’s reimagining of Achilles and Patroclus operates entirely in that register: the love is overwhelming and the stakes are absolute.

The Song of Achilles shares with RWRB the sense of two people whose love is seen, by themselves and others, as a political act. Both books ask what it costs to love across a divide that the world insists is insurmountable. Miller’s answer is harder and more elegiac than McQuiston’s, but the emotional truth at the center is recognizably the same. Read this one with appropriate preparation.

What the Numbers Tell Us About This Moment in Queer Romance

The market data here is worth paying attention to if you’re a reader who wants to understand the landscape. In August 2023, Red, White & Royal Blue was added to the Library of Congress LGBTQ+ collection for preservation. That’s not a distinction given to trendy books; it signals that scholars and archivists believe this novel will matter to how we understand this period.

The film rights to RWRB were secured by Amazon Studios in a bidding war, and a sequel to the film has been announced with McQuiston working on the screenplay. A sequel film in development, with the author writing the script, is an unusual level of creative control and suggests the world of Alex and Henry isn’t finished yet.

The broader context matters too. Contemporary fiction has been moving in a more inclusive direction, and readers are finding both representation and a broader understanding of the world through these stories. The numbers support this: queer romance as a category has expanded significantly in the half-decade since RWRB first hit shelves. Where once you could exhaust the well of quality comparable reads in an afternoon, now a serious reader could spend the better part of a year in the genre alone.

How to Choose Your Next Read

If you want the closest tonal match: Start with Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall. It’s the most direct heir to RWRB‘s specific combination of fake-relationship structure, wit, and emotional excavation.

If you want the same author: Read One Last Stop next, then The Pairing, then I Kissed Shara Wheeler. McQuiston’s voice evolves across these books in ways worth tracking.

If you want emotional intensity over comedy: Carry On by Rainbow Rowell or The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller.

If you want historical settings: The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee.

If you want something that transcends the genre entirely: The Song of Achilles. Accept that you will cry.

Final Word

I’ve been reviewing books professionally for a long time, and I’ve learned to be suspicious of my enthusiasm for any single novel. But Red, White & Royal Blue has earned something unusual: it’s a book that readers return to. Not because it’s the most technically accomplished novel of its era, but because it makes people feel good about love, and that’s harder to manufacture than any literary prize would suggest.

The books on this list approach that standard from different angles. Some share its wit, some its depth, some its political audacity. A few match two of those three qualities well. None replaces the original, but that’s not what you’re looking for anyway. You’re looking for the next place to feel that way, and I promise: these books will get you there.

“Sometimes you just jump and hope it’s not a cliff.” Casey McQuiston, Red, White & Royal Blue

That line is why this book has over a million ratings and a sequel film in development and a permanent spot in the Library of Congress. It captured something true about loving while afraid, and readers recognized it immediately. The books above are, each in their own way, saying the same thing.

Pick one, jump, and enjoy the fall.