Henry touches his hand, gently, two fingertips against his palm.
[...]
Alex reaches for him in return, presses one thumb into the hollow of his collarbone, slipping right under the knot of his tie. The tie is purple tile, and Alex is counting his breaths.
"You are," he says, "the absolute worst idea I've ever had."
Henry's mouth spreads into a slow smile, and Alex kisses it.
As a vehement anti-royal, you can imagine my distress.
I loathe the monarchy, wish them no physical ill (except Uncle Pervert - there's a subhuman in desperate need of a chemical castration), but hate them to the depths of my dark little soul? You betcha.
If there was a button that immediately dismantled them, redistributed the money they've stolen over the centuries from "their beloved constituents", and turned Buckingham Palace into a free library with corgi-cuddle-corners and eternally free iced coffee drinks (I'm spitballing, it can be other things...), I'd slam that button with the same gleeful violence I play Snap! with.
(It isn't pretty, don't play me unless you're wearing protective clothing)
No hesitation, I wouldn't need to be asked twice, just let me push it so we can be rid of the useless, entitled pricks.
...
So, with this attitude, how in the name of fuckery did I end up picking Red, White & Royal Blue as my current read? A story about the love affair between the First Son of the United States and the youngest prince of Wales?
It had absolutely nothing to do with the upcoming coronation because, honestly, I'd forgotten it was even happening (note the fucks I refuse to give), and it wasn't because the internet kept throwing the book at me insisting I read it like a very pushy, mood-omniscient librarian - I wish, that would be so useful.
It was simpler than that:
I read two stories consecutively that wrecked me and I needed a fluffy boost.
Red, White & Royal Blue has literally been staring at me (okay, not literally, but it felt like it was boring its pink, insistent little eyes into my brain, demanding I crack its spine open - books have sentience, convince me otherwise) from the foot of my bed, standing proudly in all its pink glory with its bouncy, cheery font, and it just felt like the obvious choice.
...
Best decision I've made in a while.
Because as much as I abhor the monarchy and continue to be increasingly bewildered by America's political choices, I'm obsessed with this book.
Let me tell you why:
Possibly the fluffiest.
To be clear, fluffy is by no means a slur in my book.
To me, fluffy is the type of storytelling that is full of joy, demands nothing other than you sit back and relax, and ultimately, infinitely improves your view of the world.
It's so that book it may as well be bound in the fur of some mythical, fuzzy beast who generously shed a swathe of their precious fuzz and donated it to the bookish cause - there's no murder of the supernatural critter variety for the sake of rub-your-face-in-it-binding in this library.
RW&RB is so that book, that the fluffiness was so all-encompassing I could feel myself melting into my mattress as I was reading it, slowly and contentedly being absorbed back into the earth so I could be reborn as perfectly serene primordial ooze; no thoughts, just vibes.
It was so that book, that I feel like I've developed my own coat of mythical fuzz from rolling around in Alex's (FSOTUS) brain, watching him realise that deep want was slackly masquerading as undue dislike.
[Henry] is bathed dramatically in a sweeping and resplendent sunset, wearing a crisp black jacket and riding pants tucked into tall leather boots, looking every inch an actual fairy-tale price. He unhooks his helmet and takes it off with one gloved hand, and his hair underneath is just attractively tousled enough to look like it's supposed to be that way.
"I'm going to throw up on you," Alex says as soon as Henry is close enough to hear him.
"Hello, Alex," Henry says. Alex really resents the extra few inches of height Henry has on him right now. "You look sober."
"Only for you, Your Royal Highness," he says with an elaborate mock bow. He's pleased to hear a little bit of ice in Henry's voice, finally done pretending.
"You're too kind," Henry says. He swings one long leg over and dismounts from his horse gracefully, removing his glove and extending a hand to Alex. A well-dressed stable hand springs up out of the ground to whisk the horse away by the reins. Alex has probably never hated anything more.
"This is idiotic," Alex says, grasping Henry's hand. The skin is soft, probably exfoliated and moisturized daily by some royal manicurist. There's a royal photographer right on the other side of the fence, so he smiles winningly and says through his teeth, "Let's get this over with."
"I'd rather be waterboarded," Henry says, smiling back. The camera snaps nearby. His eyes are big and soft and blue, and he desperately needs to be punched in one of them, "Your country could probably arrange that."
Alex throws his head back and laughs handsomely, loud and false. "Go fuck yourself."
"Hardly enough time," Henry says.
Being given access to every ridiculous and wonderful thought that passes through his brain whenever Henry (PoW) enters a room/txts or emails him/crosses his brain at any given moment.
HRH Prince Dickhead 💩
Oct 30, 2019, 1:07 PM
I hate that tie
HRH Prince Dickhead 💩
What tie?
the one in that instagram you
just posted
HRH Prince Dickhead 💩
What's wrong with it? It's only grey.
exactly. try patterns sometime,
and stop frowning at your phone
like I know you're doing rn
HRH Prince Dickhead 💩
Patterns are considered a
"statement." Royals aren't
supposed to make statements with
what we wear.
do it for the gram
HRH Prince Dickhead 💩
You are the thistle in the tender and
sensitive arse crack of my life.
thanks!
...
...after a lot of teasing and maybe some begging, he convinces Henry to download Snapchat. Henry mostly sends tame, fully clothed thirst traps that make Alex sweat in his lectures: a mirror shot, mud-stained white polo pants, a sharp suit. On a Saturday, the C-SPAN stream on his phone gets interrupted by Henry on a sailboat, smiling into the camera with the sun bright on his bare shoulders, and Alex's head goes so fucking weird that he has to put his head in his hands for a full minute.
And the resulting union of two very smart, yet very stupid, very lovable boys.
Alex can't help laughing again. "Right, because it's so hard to get a date when you're a prince."
Henry cuts his eyes back down to Alex. "You'd be surprised."
"How? You're not exactly lacking for options."
Henry keeps looking at him, holding his gaze for two seconds too long. "The options I'd like . . ." he says, dragging the words out. "They don't quite seem to be options at all."
Alex blinks. "What?"
"I'm saying that I have . . . people . . . who interest me." Henry says, turning his body toward Alex now, speaking with a fumbling pointedness, as if it means something. "But I shouldn't pursue them. At least not in my position."
Are they too drunk to communicate in English? He wonders distantly if Henry knows any Spanish.
"I don't know what the hell you're talking about," Alex says.
"You don't?"
"No."
"You really don't?"
"I really, really don't."
Henry's whole face grimaces in frustration, his eyes casting skyward like they're searching for help from an uncaring universe. "Christ, you are as thick as it gets," he says, and he grabs Alex's face in both hands and kisses him.
It's all just so, well, fluffy, and exactly what I needed, for so many reasons.
If you want to feel simply sated to the brink with endorphins of the queer romance variety, then this is one thousand percent the book you want to pick up.
It's so fucking generous in buoying whoever's reading it up, refusing to give way to misery and shock narrative-tangents for the sake of plot, and instead delivering a feast of all that's joyous and exciting and meaningful about being young and in love, romantically and platonically.
Which is perhaps one of the aspects I love so very much about RW&RB: that Alex and Henry's love story is just one of the significant forms of love shown throughout.
We put so much emphasis on romantic love in the romance genre (and often in life) that familial, platonic, friendship, chosen family, even workplace affection can be unfairly shunted into the background, when really it should be held in equal standing, right at the forefront, providing, for some, an integral part of romantic love.
Casey McQuiston seems to understand this because while they play no games with us as Alex and Henry fall in love - it's swift, and giddying, and I couldn't have asked for more, they make sure that every moment with June (Alex's sister) and Bea (Henry's sister) is infused with bickering, laughter, infuriation, easy stillness, in jokes, I can call them a shit-biscuit but if you do I'll introduce my knee to your uvula vibes,etc.
It just excels in portraying that all important sibling love.
And Alex's mum may be the President of the United States but she'll still affectionally call her son a lovable knob-head when he messes up.
Ellen released two inches of zipper on the back of her skirt, the sign she's officially done for the day, and scoops up a slice.
"All right," she says. She does a scrubbing gesture in the air in front of her face―president face off, mom face on. "Hi, babies."
"'Lo," Alex and June mumble in unison through mouthfuls of food.
Ellen sighs and looks over at Leo. "I did that, didn't I? No goddamn manners. Like a couple of little opossums. This is why they say women can't have it all."
"They are masterpieces," Leo says.
As will his dad, his stepdad, the people who work for the President who've watched Alex grow up, his best friend Nora (we love Nora, we want a whole book for Nora. With June? Because I think they're in love, but I might be lazy-shipping... *shrug*), especially Nora.
Why?
Because that's what family does.
I joke about it, but genuinely, if I call you a weirdo or a monster or a shit-heel, it really does mean I'm awfully fond of you; my most genuine relationships are the ones filled with affectionate slurs (ask my sisters, they get the most loving, verbal abuse).
That might seem bizarre to some people, but it doesn't to me, it feels wholly natural, and it was the vibe I got from the way the Claremont-Diazs and friends interacted with each other, the way they loved, and it's one of the many reasons this story brought me so much joy.
And I really do mean one of many.
Let me recount some of the others, we'll do it in a list, because I'm currently doggy-paddling my way through some serious brain-fog and a combination of RSI/faulty circulation.
Typing is the devil and lists are the goblin-bodied's greatest ally.
Thus...
A Full Accounting of the Many Reasons Why RW&RB Melted My Brain Into Satiated Goo:
🗝️ Alex and Henry very quickly vibrating their way from "enemies" to besties to lovers ← they wasted no time and I'm here for that kind of commitment to the just fucking kiss already agenda.
Alex,
[...]
But the first time I saw you. Rio. I took that down to the gardens. I pressed it into the leaves of a silver maple and recited it to the Waterloo Vase. it didn't fit in any other rooms.
You were talking with Nora and June, happy and animated and fully alive, a person living in dimensions I couldn't access, and so beautiful. Your hair was longer then. You weren't even a president's son yet, but you weren't afraid. You had a yellow ipê-amarelo in your pocket.
I thought, this is the most incredible thing I have ever seen, and I had better keep it a safe distance away from me. I thought, if someone like that ever love die, it would set me on fire.
And then I was a careless fool, and I fell in love with you anyway. When you rang me at truly shocking hours of the night, I loved you. When you kissed me in disgusting public toilets and pouted in hotel bars and made me happy in ways in which it had never occurred to me that a mangled-up, locked-up person like me could be happy, I loved you.
And then, inexplicably, you had the absolute audacity to love me back. Can you believe it?
Sometimes, even now, I still can't.
[...]
Yours,
Henry
P.S. From Michelangelo to Tommaso Cavalieri, 1533:
I know well that, at this hour, I could as easily forget your name as the food by which I live; nay, it were easier to forget the food, which only nourishes my body miserably, than your name, which nourishes both body and soul, filling the one and the other with such sweetness that neither weariness nor fear of death is felt by me while memory preserves your to my mind. Think, if the eyes could also enjoy their portion, in what condition I should find myself.
🗝️ The way they interacted in every available form (face to face, phone calls, video chats, txts, through other people, letters), but especially their emails ← the postscript quotes from other famous lovers... when I tell you I swooned, I'm telling you I passed the fuck out.
🗝️ Every time Henry called Alex a demon or plague, etc. ← remember what I said about loving insults? *dies*
🗝️ Casey McQuiston not shying away from both the MC's precarious political situations and the impact that has and could have on their relationship ← if this ever happened IRL, it'd be the only time I'd have an ounce of respect for the British Monarchy.
Alex,
[...]
Once, there was a young prince who was born in a castle. His mother was a princess scholar, and his father was the most handsome, feared knight in all the land. As a boy, people would bring him everything he could ever dream of wanting. The most beautiful silk clothes, ripe fruit from the orangery. At times, he was so happy, he felt he would never grow tired of being a prince.
He came from a long, long line of princes, but never before had there been a prince quite like him: born with his heart on the outside of his body.
🗝️ But also not letting it stand in their way ← it's fiction, this is place to not give a fuck about etiquette and the reaction of two nations who refuse to renounce undue prejudices for the sake of appeasing bigots.
🗝️ The easy affection between every character in the book but especially Nora and June ← I might believe they're secretly in love, but even if they're not, the easy, loving reverence they touch each other is so pleasing to read. You can snuggle your bestie, stroke their hair, kiss their forehead, and it can simply be because you platonically love them so very much.
🗝️ Familial support and the rejection of the unsupportive ← I cried when Alex and Henry's secret is exposed and they physically held them together, positions of power be damned, family first. And points to Princess Catherine for finally telling Queen Bitch off and standing up for her son; that was real queenly behaviour.
🗝️ A female president ← Ellen Claremont is such a badass, a true boss bitch who has it all, so until America wises the fuck up, she'll be my Pres from here on out.
🗝️ That even the grand gestures felt completely normal instead of hyperbolic nonsense ← it helps that both these characters have the means to make mad dashes across the world to be there for each other then they're having a wobble/need a cuddle/just want to see each other's faces.
🗝️ Getting to enjoy the full progression of A & H's relationship, from first loathe to every I love you thereafter ← Soooo many romances can be all about the chase and the roadblocks that hinder a relationship, and Alex and Henry of course have those, in abundance, but it never stopped them from being together in one form or another, working through those problems together instead of backing away to separate corners to lick their respective wounds. They're a team, from start to finish, and we were gifted the smallest and the grandest moments, and everything in between.
h,
I have had whiskey. bear with me.
there's this thing you do. this thing. it drives me crazy. i think about it all the time.
there's a corner of your mouth, and a place that it goes. pinched and worried like you're afraid you're forgetting something. I used to hate it. used to think it was your little tic of disapproval.
but i've kissed your mouth, that corner, that place it goes, so many times now. i've memorized it. topography on the map of you, a world i'm still charting. i know it. i added it to the key. here: inches to miles. i can multiply it out, read your latitude and longitude. recite your coordinates like la rosaria.
this thing, your mouth, its place. it's what you do when you're trying not to give yourself away. not in the way that you do all the time, those empty, greedy grabs for your. i means the truth of you. the weird, perfect shape of your heart. the one on the side outside of your chest.
on the map of you, my fingers can always find the green hills, wales. cool waters and a shore of white chalk. the ancient part of you carved out of stone in a prayerful circle, sacrosanct. your spine's a ridge i'd die climbing.
if I could spread it out on my desk, i'd find the corner of your mouth where it pinches with my fingers, and i'd smooth it away and you'd be marked with the names of saints like all the old maps. i get the nomenclature now―saints' names belong to miracles.
give yourself away sometimes, sweetheart. there's so much of you.
fucking yrs,
a
ps. wilfred owen to siegfried sassoon―1917:
And you have fixed my Life―however short. You did not light me: I was always a mad comet; but you have fixed me. I spun round you a satellite for a month, but shall swing out soon, a dark star in the orbit where you will blaze.
🗝️ The representation ← it's everywhere, in every element, and not once a cliché. What else do you say about that other than fuck yeah?
🗝️ The infectious joy of your MC reuniting after a weeks, days, moments apart ← it never gets old, that shared, quiet exhilaration, and that I get to be a part of it every time. Reading is awesome.
🗝️ How funny this book is ← I don't normally lol when I'm reading, there'll be internal snickering instead, but McQuiston really attack-tickled my funny bone with nearly every character - Nora and Alex in particular, mischievous monsters - I couldn't stop the chuckles and surprised barks from escaping.
🗝️ Prince Buttercup and Hoe Dameron ← their ship's flag bears a key and a ring on a chain, and it flies high and proudly.
🗝️ This speech:
Philip slants a harsh, humorless laugh at him. "You don't know what you're talking about. You can't possibly know."
"Fuck off, Philip, I love him," Henry says.
"Oh, you love him, do you?" It's so patronizing that Alex's hand twitches into a fist under the table. "What exactly do you intend to do, then, Henry? Hmm? Marry him? Make him the Duchess of Cambridge? The First Son of the United Bloody States, fourth in line to be Queen of England?"
"I'll fucking abdicate!" Henry says, voice rising. "I don't care!"
"You wouldn't dare," Philip spits back.
"We have a great uncle who abdicated because he was a fucking Nazi, so it'd hardly be the worst reason anyone's done it, would it?" Henry's yelling now, and he's our of this chair, hands shaking, towering over Philip, and Alex notices that he's actually taller. "What are we even defending here, Philip? What kind of legacy? What kind of family, that says, we'll take the murder, we'll take the raping and pillaging and the colonizing, we'll scrub it up nice and neat in a museum, but oh now, you're a blood poof? That's beyond our send of decorum! I've bloody well had it. I've sat about long enough letting you and Gran and the weight of the damned world keep me pinned, and I'm finished. I don't care. You can take your legacy and your decorum and you can shove it up your fucking arse, Philip. I'm done."
He huffs out an almighty breath, turns on his heel, and stalks out of the kitchen.
Alex, mouth hanging open, remains frozen in his seat for a few seconds. Across from him, Philip is looking red-faced and queasy. Alex clears his throat, stands, and buttons his jacket.
"For what's it's worth," he says to Philip, "that is the bravest son of a bitch I've ever met."
And he leaves too.
...
And these are just a few of things I can remember without combing through all the moments I dogeared my copy for.
A sacrilegious act to some, but to me, those folded corners represent a memory map, a desire line to be retraced whenever RW&RB calls me back, creased with landmarks to aid in reliving a love story that pushed my arse playfully onto a plush chair, threw a soft blanket over my pliant body, affixed a cup of something warm in my thirsty paw, and demanded I not move until my molecules rewrote the rules on just how much dopamine the human body can handle.
Henry's hands move, brushing up to Alex's shoulders, the dip of his throat, the underside of his jaw, and when Alex finally looks up, Henry's eyes are soft and steady. "You still are. Because you still bloody care so much." He leans down and presses a kiss into Alex's hair. "And you are good. Most things are awful most of the time, but you're good."
Alex takes a breath. There's this way Henry has of listening to the erratic stream of consciousness that pours out of Alex's mouth and answering with the clearest, crystallized truth that Alex has been trying to arrive at all along. If Alex's head is a storm, Henry is the place lightning hits ground.
This book is not just queer romance, but romance in general, at its finest.
It's funny, it's warm, it's unexpected, it's irreverent, meaningful, inclusive and representative, shamelessly well written, unapologetically messy, and is basically just really, spectacularly, heart-soaringly lovely.
Henry's beaming like a proud parent, like Samson is his, and Alex is hit with a wave of pride in kind.
He takes his phone out and lines up a shot, Henry standing there all soft and rumpled and smiling next to one of the most exquisite works of art in the world.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm taking a picture of a national gay landmark," Alex tell him. "And also a statue."
Henry laughs indulgently, and Alex closes the space between them, takes Henry's baseball cap off and stands on his toes to kiss the ridge of his brow.
"It's funny," Henry says. "I always thought of the whole thing as the most unforgivable thing about me, but you act like it's one of the best."
"Oh yeah," Alex says. "The top list of reasons to love goes brain, dick, then imminent status as a revolutionary gay icon."
"You are quite literally Queen Victoria's worst nightmare."
"And that's why you love me."
"My God, you're right. All this time, I was just after the bloke who'd most infuriate my homophobic forebears."
"Ah, and we can't forget they were also racist."
"Certainly not." Henry nods seriously. "Next time we shall visit some of the George III pieces and see if they burst into flame."
[...]
When they kiss, Alex can hear a half-remembered old proverb from catechism, mixed up between translations of the book: "Come, hijo mío, de la miel, porque es buena, and the honeycomb, sweet to they taste." He wonders what Santa Chiara would think of them, a lost David and Jonathan, turning slowly on the spot.
He brings Henry's hand to his mouth and kisses the little knob of his knuckle, the skin over the blue vein there, bloodlines, pulses, the old blood kept in perpetuity within these walls, and he thinks, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, amen.
Even if I hadn't read it during a few days of extremely high stress and it hadn't acted as a grounding balm to my climbing-out-my-own-skin-someone-get-me-down-from-the-fucking-ceiling-please mind-frame, I would still put it on a pedestal as one not only one of my favourite books of the year so far, but as one of my favourite romances, ever.
Not even specially YA romance, just romance, the whole genre. Full stop. Period.
I never thought I'd feel that way about a story centred on two people in such privileged positions (see: above rant about the monarchy), but it happened, and I wouldn't give these feelings back for all the Jaffa Cakes in Britain ← you'll get that bit if you read it. ... Reeeeead it.
Alexander Claremont-Diaz and Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor are two of the warmest main characters I've had the privilege to read, they're fucked up and doing their best, and with an unexpected amount of honest graceless grace.
"Yes, hello, hello, it's good to see you too!" Henry is saying from somewhere inside a smothering hug from June and Nora. Alex bites his lip and watches Henry squeeze their waists in return, and then Alex has him, inhaling the clean smell of him, laughing into the crook of his neck.
"Hi, love," he hears Henry say quietly, privately, right into the hair above his ear, and Alex's breath forgets how to do anything but laugh helplessly.
I love them.
Dear Thisbe,
I wish there weren't a wall.
Love, Pyramus
They made my heart better.
Alex tries to memorize every detail down to how [Henry's] lashes fan across his cheeks and the pink flush that spreads all the way up to his ears. He tells his too-fast brain: Don't miss it this time. He's too important.
My bones and my blood and my brain.
"On purpose. I love him on purpose."
Just... better.
And if Amazon fucks the movie up, I will... not riot because I'll be too busy re-reading the book so no crappy adaptations can touch my perfect boys.
...
But let's hope for the best, yeah?
Like Alex and Henry would.
History, huh? Bet we could make some.
Ps. I want more. If it can't be the boys, make it Nora, make it June, or Bea, or Pez, or Zahra and Shaan, or Amy and Cash.
Harrison Ford has pitch perfect curmudgeonly timing.
Jason Segel's honed his goofy, guy next door appeal to the nth degree and it is working for him.
Christa Miller gets a free queen pass for life because of her gleefully sadistic performance as Jordan in Scrubs, which trickles majestically and suburbanly down into her role in this.
I haven't seen The Last of Us yet - avoiding spoilers white still trying to enjoy Pedro Pascal as yet another fictional daddy is fucking impossible - but I don't need to in order to know that Bella Ramsey's smashing her role as Ellie into triumphant, apocalyptic sludge.
They're an absolute goblin, and I mean that as the highest of compliments.
If you told me that pink, sunrise glow came from an underwash applied at the very start of the painting, I wouldn't have believed you.
Which is to be expected what with me being an art school brat who can't fucking paint but in theory knows how to (I paint so well in my head) because I was forced through years of history of art lectures and, y'know, I absorbed some stuffy while I was trying to stay awake.
But still... I feel pleasantly sneak-attacked.
And Simi aka.willowwaves_art much overlooked Mary being the long-suffering, uptight grump I know and love her to be:
"I will stand with you between the heavens and the earth."
"I will tell you where you are."
"You did not go over the wall."
...
I am unwell.
A pudding-brained heathen for these two.
With every season of Bridgerton, I never see my favourite couple changing hands, the aforementioned pudding-brain takes hold so fiercely it doesn't seem possible, but somehow, it happens every single time.
And Charlotte and George are no different.
Sorry, Kate and Anthony, these two have my sworn allegiance, now.
...
Well, until Penelope and Colin inevitably serotonin-bomb my body and I continue my reign as the ficklest of shipping bitches.
"Ten glowing bugs to help me find a missing Princess protected by charms you can't see through. After that, all I have to do is depose the current Queen of the Mists, convince Arden to take the throne, and get myself un-banished. Oh, yeah. Piece of cake." I scowled at the Luidaeg. "Don't you believe in easy quests?"
"No." She smiled again.
The word that tolls the clearest when I ruminate on my experience reading Toby's seventh foray into the fae-ridden side-streets of San Francisco is:
Clusterfuck
Complete and utter.
There's no other word to describe the fresh hell she went through this time around, and that really is saying something because if I had to make a bar graph (fuck off with your pie charts, percentages are the devil's arithmetic ... *is a mathsless wonder*) of the pints of blood lost by the Urban Fantasy protagonists I've read thus far, Toby's anaemic ass would be sprawled limply at the top, begging for a cookie and a flagon of juice.
I love her, I love her dearly, but Oberon's tits (Seanan's fae have the best curses) she can't seem to not bleed out in every single fucking book and she's giving me godsdamned mental stress lines.
And to think, I picked Chimes at Midnight up thinking it'd be a chill read, some time to hang out with Toby and her rabble, fight a little ethereal evil, snark around and flirt with Tybalt unashamedly, maybe pick up a few new friends along the way.
...
I mean, all these things did happen and it was reliably soothing for my poor, battered brainpan, I just didn't realise it was all going to occur concurrently with Toby being banished, becoming a Goblin Fruit addict and subsequently turning herself almost fully human, Tybalt basically dying (he's a cat, he's fine), and the dethroning of a usurper, Banshee bitch Queen (about damn time).
Oh, and that Quentin's a prince/someday king?
"My name is Quentin Sollys. I am the Crown Prince of the High Kingdom of the Westlands. And I think I know a thing or two about being royal, no matter what you say."
"I'm going to kill him," I muttered.
Arden just stared. "What?"
"My father is King Aethlin Sollys of the Westlands," said Quentin. "I've been in blind fosterage fro the last six years. It seemed like the best way for me tor grow up without being treated like a Prince everywhere I went." He glanced at me sidelong, and while there was still apology in his eyes, it was underscored now by amusement. "I can definitively say that I've not been receiving the royal treatment for the last several years."
"You people are insane." Arden shook her head, apparently shaking off her shock at the same time. "She's not Daoine Sidhe, and a pie turned her human, so she wants me to go through with an act of treason so she can get her hands on a fairy tale, and now you're telling me it's okay, because you're secretly the Crown Prince of the Kingdom that my Kingdom answers to." She turned, leveling a finger at Danny. "Are you going to tell me that you're really Oberon in disguise? Is that the next piece of the lunatic pie?"
"Nah, not me," said Danny. "I'm just the taxi driver."
I knew Toby's beloved squire was someone of significance, but royalty?!
It makes sense, absolute, total sense, I'm just... my head... its defenceless neurones are exploding with the surplus of information and clusterfuckery Seanan gleefully hurled at its soft underbelly with the contents of this book.
So, I'm a little, what you could call, off kilter.
Ie. I'm gonna need another book to actually chill out with post Toby tossing a lit match into Fae society and generally fucking everyone's shit up for the greater good.
Fuck, I'm tired.
But very happy.
For a few reasons I shall now recount:
🪲 Toby and Tybalt, T², my fae loves
I scooped the firefly off my lapel and tucked it into the pocket of my jack. Hopefully, the little bug was sturdy enough that it wouldn't be squashed. "Can you see anything glowing through my clothes? I don't want to spook the locals if we can help it."
"Hmm." Tybalt stepped back, taking an ostentatiously long look up and down my body. I crossed my arms, raising an eyebrow. He raised a finger to silence any objections I might be preparing and continued his study. Finally, he nodded, looking smug, and said, "Nothing but your sparkling personality."
"You can be a real dick when you want to," I said. "Why am I dating you again?"
"Leather pants," he deadpanned.
I laughed. I couldn't help myself.
"And that, too, is my saving grace: I make you laugh when you spend far too much time wrapped in the shroud of your own dignity." He placed a kiss on my forehead. "If I may be so bold, now would be an excellent time for you to get a cup of coffee."
These two flirted, ogled, and smooched their way through every scene they graced the pages together, and I loved every damn second.
It took six books to get here, an average of 2100 pages, and a whole bunch of words I can't be bothered estimating (mathsless wonder strikes again), if this book hadn't been an unabashed love-fest, I'd've been severely pissed.
I've got zero patience for couples who break up continuously until the very end; the Cookie Monster can keep his delayed gratification, I want my HEA now and I want to watch it play out in several books after the fact.
And I guess McGuire feels this way, too, because T² couldn't be any more together if they tried.
They fight together, they play together, they laugh together, they routinely get stabbed together.
Just as all good Urban Fantasy couples should.
And they did it with nary a let's take a break, miscommunication, grown toddler tantrum in sight.
I put my hand against the side of his face. This was the first time we'd been alone since I woke up. If I couldn't afford a few seconds for this, it was already too late. I was already lost.
"Hey," I said. "I mean it. You're stuck with me. I'm not going anywhere. If there's an answer, we'll find it. And if there's not an answer, we'll create it. We're going to talk to Walther, and then we're going to ask the Luidaeg if she knows where to find a hope chest, and we're going to fix this. I'll be back to normal before you know it."
"Your life is in danger. You're stubborn, pigheaded, and refusing to admit the gravity of your situation. I'd say you're normal right now." His tone was light, but it couldn't disguise his relief.
"Don't make fun of me while I'm in the middle of a crisis."
Tybalt peeled my hand away from his face, holding it as he stepped closer. There was no space left between us. "My sweet little fish. If I refused to make fun of you simply because you were in the grips of crisis, I would never have the opportunity to make fun of you again."
"I'd be okay with that," I said.
...
Tybalt moved to sit down next to me on the bed. I scooted over so that my leg was pressed against his, and resting my head on his shoulder. He sighed, a sound that was somewhere between exhaustion and relief, and raised a hand to stroke my hair.
"We will come through this," he said. "If I have to find your mother myself, and drag her kicking and screaming from whatever hole she is currently hiding in, we will come through this."
"And if we don't?" I twisted so I could see his face. "What if it's me, and chunks of frozen blood, and human grave? What then?"
"Then I stay beside you for as long as we have." He kept stroking my hair. Cats like to be petted. Cait Sidhe like to pet. "October, I meant it when I told you I was not leaving you. I will never leave you while both of us are living. You were not quite this human when I met you, and you were far less human when I finally allowed myself to love you. But the essential core of your being has remained the same no matter what the balance of your blood."
"How is it that you always know the exact right stupid romance novel thing to say?" I asked, leaning up to kiss him.
He smiled against my lips. When I pulled back, he said, "I was a student of Shakespeare centuries before the romance novel was even dreamt. Be glad I do not leave you horrible poetry on your pillow, wrapped securely around the bodies of dead rats."
"Cait Sidhe romance," I said, and laughed. "It's definitely different."
I love them so fucking much.
🪲 The fast pace and shocking moments Seanan kept pelting me with
I'm 99% sure the total of times Toby sat down and took a full breath in this episode of How to Fuck with Toby Daye for Funsies was one.
One relaxing sit for our protagonist, not even enough time to savour a cup of her beloved caffeine - rude.
CaM is very much go, go go, don't stop until you're dead, or Blind Michael'll eat your ankles as a snack- which Toby almost was on multiple occasions throughout, she really commits, y'know? - and this isn't a pace that lends itself to... layered storytelling, shall we say.
It lends itself to kicking your heart rate up and wondering just how the fuck Toby's gonna wiggle her way out of this week's ethereal deathtrap conundrum.
Thus, it may not be the deepest of narratives but it sure is a bonkers amount of fun:
🐞 Getting banished
🐞 Nearly freezing to death on the Shadow Roads
🐞 Receiving a drugged pie in the face
🐞 Discovering your squire's a prince
🐞 Rescuing a different prince and nearly dying of iron poisoning
🐞 Being chased by invisible goons
🐞 Almost dying from an overdose
🐞 Consuming the Luidaeg's blood in Tic Tac form and learning some stuff
🐞 Watching your twin-fetch-sister die a bloody death and hoping her immortality's not taking a sabbatical
🐞 Suffering a little laryngitis, courtesy of your Siren-thralled boyfriend's claws
🐞 Making a deal with the Night-haunts to save said feline boyfriend's life
And a whole bunch of other fuckery.
I think that's collectively more shit-happenings in one book than the whole series put together.
"You know, I did not sign up for a crazy fairy tale scavenger hunt this week."
"Yes, you did," said Tybalt, pacing me. I shot him a sharp look. "You got out of bed. The universe does seem to take that as a personal affront."
The urge to call him something unforgiveable was strong. I settled for glaring and walking faster until we reached the Luidaeg's door.
And it was fucking glorious.
I am looking forward to a little more substance in the next one, though.
I'm sorry if I'm drooling, but I'm already a library fetishist, you can't throw in the Fae and not expect me to dissolve into a puddle of bibliophile goo.
...
Magical libraries are the best libraries
The end.
Ps. I want to live there. I'll make a bed in the shelves and eat firebrats for sustenance if I have to.
🪲 Making new friends, but especially Madden, the Cu Sidhe, an actual human puppy
We've made plenty of new acquaintances throughout the series so far:
🦋 Danny, the troll with a heart of gold
🦋 Jazz, May's sweetheart Raven-maid girlfriend
🦋 The Undersea monarchs and their children
🦋 April, an eager to please cyber-druid, first of her kind
🦋 Raj, Tybalt's more puppy than cat nephew and heir
🦋 Marcia, a quarter-blooded changeling and mother hen
🦋 Walther, a Tylwyth Teg professor, the creator of above-mentioned blood Tic Tacs, what a ledge
A bevy of buds.
A furlong of friends.
And now we can add Arden Windermere, the rightful Queen in the Mists and her brother Nolan, who's a little elf-shot at the moment, so we don't really know him but if he's anything like Arden, he'll be loveably cantankerous.
...
Look at all those people.
We started the series with Toby alone, no allies aside from Sylvester and a taunting "relationship" with Tybalt (shipped it the moment the first insult was lobbed), no friends, no family, just herself and a metric fuck-ton of guilt clinging to her back.
And look at her now, all these people who'd take an iron bullet for her without even being asked.
"Nope," said Danny imperturbably.
"What?" I blinked at him.
"I'll take you to the Library, but I'm not taking you to your car. I'll take you to Shadowed Hills, if you want. Maybe you could do with checking in, I dunno. Doesn't mean you're getting your car back."
"What are you talking―Danny." I folded my arms. "Tell me you're not refusing to take me to my car because you think I'm too human to drive."
"Can't. I don't lie to friends." He took a sharp turn. "You don't need a car, Tobes, you need a driver, and muscle to keep you from doing whatever ass-crazy thing pops into your head. You're too used to being invincible, and right now, you're not. Me, I sort of am invincible, as long as you're not coming at me with dynamite and a blasting caps. Let me be invincible for you. I can stand between you and the shit that's trying to make you stop breathing."
"Much as I hate to add to the size of our company, he has a valid point," said Tybalt. "I would gladly take a bullet for you. I would even more gladly stand behind a man of living stone and allow him to take the bullet for the both of us."
But none so eager as perhaps our newest addition, the aforementioned puppy man, the Cu Sidhe himself, Madden.
He's quite possibly the most high energy character in the whole series and frankly, it's adorable and much needed.
Examples:
"Okay," said Madden, sounding pleased with himself. "Okay, okay. The bad people are gone now. Everything is wonderful, and I get to have a ginger cooked once Arden gets back. Protect the basement, get a ginger cookie."
Danny rolled his eyes as he turned to look at me. "This guy for real?" he muttered.
"Cu Sidhe," I said, like that explained everything. In a way, it did. They're not stupid―in fact, some great fae scholars have been Cu Sidhe―but they prefer simplicity and joy to complexity and angst. It's a nice change from the rest of Faerie. I stood, releasing my hold on Quentin, and walked to the curtain. "You can let go now, Danny."
He released the seam. I spread the canvas "wall" and walking through, back out into the basement, where a smug-looking Madden was waiting for us.
"They left," he said. "You did a good hide. It was real quiet. I barely heard you at all."
That was high praise coming from a Cu Sidhe who'd been in animal form while we were trying to stay silent. I smiled at him, fighting back the urge to ruffle his ears. "You were an excellent diversion and protector," I said. "You did real good."
He beamed at the word "good". I guess the urge to be considered a good dog is genetic.
...
The front passenger door opened. Madden flung himself into the seat, beaming. "Hi!"
"Hi, Madden," May and I chorused dutifully.
He turned a hopeful expression on Danny. "Can I . . . ?" he asked.
Danny chuckled. "Sure thing," he said, and started the cab. "Just don't jump out the window while we're moving, okay?"
"Okay!" said Madden, and shimmered, replaced by a large white dog with red-furred ears. His eyes were surrounded by matching circles, giving him an almost panda-like quality. Danny hit a button. Madden's window rolled down, and he stuck his head outside.
I can't decide whether it ruins or amps up their malevolent We're here to eat your dead flesh and poop you out in fae paradise when we're done using your body as a teeny tiny mortuary service vibe.
...
No, it definitely amplifies it.
That's fucking hilarious.
Sidenote: Who thinks Toby making a deal with the malevolent Barbie brigade is going to end well?
My children are feral monsters, long may they reign.
Milady McGuire was not holding back on the collective guttings this time around and maybe it makes me a little sardonic, but I kind of enjoyed it.
Sometimes you need the ante to be upped a little to really make the mortality of your favourite fictional, immortal characters become apparent.
...
That sentence is all kinds of messed up, but hey, if I'm happy sitting in my slicked with blood crazy, then really, where's the problem?
I just hope Toby manages to keep her guts inside long enough to, I don't know, pledge mutual, eternal devotion to Tybalt and maybe get a week where someone isn't trying to kill her? A holiday, even?
That could be fun.
...
Nah.
More blood! Buckets of blood! All the blood!
*is also feral*
🪲 Ding-dong, the Bitch Queen is . . . gone?
This bitch... ohhhh, this bitch.
I cannot emphasise how much I needed the Queen of the Mists' reign to finally be over, thrown out on her ass, kicked to whatever the curb equivalent of a fairy knowe is - fairy ring? Seems the most logical.
Just fucking gone.
Since the beginning she's been a Regina George-sized pain in Toby's proverbial, with the teen bitch energy to match, and she evokes exactly the sort of murderous reaction all queen bees drag out of me:
Squishy, squishy murder with a big ol' smile on my face.
I save all my murder-urges for fictional characters, probably safer that way, and I've been waiting the entire series so far for Toby to get her chance to kick some royal ass.
...
And I guess I'll have to wait a little bit longer because in true idiot protagonist form, the good guys turned their backs on her bitchy queenliness the moment they defeated her, and she was spirited away by her remaining loyalists!
...
Does no one in Toby's band of muppets know the rules?!
I repeat: my children are feral monsters and easily distracted nitwits, long may they reign.
This is good, though.
I think it's good.
No, it's definitely good.
Because this means we're not done with the former Queen of the Mists, a character we don't even know the true name of, where she came from, why she took the throne, why she loathes Toby so very much.
There are still so many things to be discovered, so I'm... fine with her not being fairy food, totally fine.
And this means Toby can still throat punch her until she cries Oberon in future stories.
Now, that I'll enjoy.
🪲 Hints, hints, everywhere
Was it just me or were hints being dropped like pixie dust throughout this?
🐛 Arden definitely knows something about Toby's heritage she's not saying
🐛 Marcia had a notably suss reaction to Arden being found
🐛 Dean's reaction to Arden was... interesting
🐛 May's reaction to Arden was also... interesting
🐛 And The Luidaeg, always the picture of Delphic evasiveness
Suuuuuspicious.
Strange things are afoot in the state of Frisco.
Which unequivocally cements the feeling I was pestered with throughout Toby's bloody escapades:
This is the book before the book where shit really goes down and something truly Toby-altering happens.
Not bad, but not necessarily good, and a little narratively stretched, but the two leads had palpable chemistry, more than enough to carry the story through.
I had a nice time.
Until the very end.
...
I'LL NEVER FORGIVE.
That's some literary fiction bullshit, right there.
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