Casey McQuiston
Casey McQuiston is an author.
Casey McQuiston arrived in 2019 with a premise built for word of mouth: the son of America's first female president falls for a prince of England, with a diplomatic incident built into the setup. Red, White & Royal Blue became a New York Times bestseller and one of those debuts that turns a writer into a category.
The follow-up, One Last Stop, kept the romance and swapped the political obstacle for something stranger, which is the pattern in their work. Take a straightforward love story, drop an absurd structural problem into the middle of it, then play the consequences completely straight. McQuiston writes dialogue in a very online register, fast and profane and heavy on the bit, and the books are funniest when the characters are avoiding the one conversation they need to have.
I Kissed Shara Wheeler, published in May 2022, was their move into young adult fiction, and Time put them on its 2022 Time 100 Next list the same year. The Pairing followed in 2024.
Books (4)
Where to start with Casey McQuiston
Read Red, White & Royal Blue first, mostly because starting anywhere else means reading it later anyway. It is the loudest and most quotable of the four, and it sets the terms: banter as foreplay, a high-concept obstacle, a resolution that wants you happy.
One Last Stop is the better novel. The romance is warmer, the found-family cast around it is doing real work, and the speculative conceit forces everyone to be specific about what they actually want. If the debut felt too much like a group chat, this is the book that changes minds.
I Kissed Shara Wheeler is the young adult entry and the sharpest on cruelty, small towns and the performance of being liked, so it reads younger without being softer. The Pairing is the most recent of these credits and the one to save for last.