Red, White & Royal Blue author’s new novel is the horniest non-binary read of the summer

Warning: spoilers for Casey McQuiston’s new book The Pairing follow.

“Right out of frame, I have my therapeutic crocheting projects for the pre-book jitters,” says romance writer Casey McQuiston, while holding up an orange crochet tool and golden yarn for us to see over Zoom.

We’re speaking one week before the release of McQuiston’s new novel The Pairing, and the crocheting is helping to settle that sickly blend of nerves, fear and overwhelming joy.

“I think romance is such a vulnerable thing to write. Even when it’s not based on anything from your own life or your own experiences, it’s still this deeply vulnerable emotional craft,” they say. “I’m baring so much of my heart for people to like or dislike when they read it. I don’t know that you ever fully get used to that.”

More than most authors, McQuiston knows about the heady mix of feelings that come with letting your characters become known. Their first book, Red, White & Royal Blue, was published in 2019 and probably needs no introduction for readers of queer romance.

The long and short of it is this: Alex, the son of the president of the US, and Henry, an heir to the British throne, loathe each other, until they don’t. One highly publicised incident brings them closer behind closed doors, and, as their fixation gets stronger and steamier by the page, they’re forced to accept the fact that the world might not be ready for queer, future world leaders.

After enthralling BookTok during the pandemic, the novel became a global hit. Just this week, Time magazine named it one of the world’s best romance stories.

The Pairing arrives almost exactly one year after the release of Prime Video’s film adaptation of Red, White & Royal Blue, which has just been nominated for an Emmy Award (McQuiston is currently writing a screenplay sequel, although they can’t say much about it). Despite releasing two books – One Last Stop and I Kissed Shara Wheeler, both queer – in between that and The Pairing, the newest title is the first to land since their work reached a whole new streaming audience.

McQuiston’s nerves are understandable, although unwarranted. The Pairing is a bisexual exes-to-lovers story – “it’s one of my favourite dynamics” – featuring French-American pastry chef Kit Fairfield, and sommelier hopeful Theo Fairfield.

Four years after a mid-flight argument caused them to split while on their way to a European food-and-wine tour, and become estranged, both the former childhood friends separately – and unknown to the other –decide to finally take the tour, at exactly the same time.

Cue three weeks of sun, sea, sand and copious amounts of sex, all while their past feelings for each other bubble under the surface, like sugar caramelising on a stove.

It’s as charming as Red, White & Royal Blue, but far hornier, and peppered with such sharp, intricate details of Europe’s very best facets – salt air, crisp wine, velvety gelato – that readers will have to engage maximum restraint not to book a late summer trip.

“I guess you can call this a ‘processing my pandemic sh*t’ type of book,” McQuiston says. “I remember how depressed I was when I couldn’t go out into the world and taste and smell things for a couple years and how that wrecked me creatively, spiritually and emotionally.”

Also during the pandemic, in 2021, McQuiston publicly revealed that they are non-binary and began using they/them pronouns. The Pairing is, in part, a vehicle for them to further explore gender identity.

Although the novel looks and sounds like one you might find buried under towels and swimsuits in the beach bags of any unsuspecting, cis-het holiday-maker, it’s also a gorgeous trans love story, and one which just a few years ago would have failed to find resonance outside the LGBTQ+ community. Half-way through, Theo reveals to Kit that they are non-binary and use they/them pronouns.

“I think what was hard and scary about writing a romance about trans non-binary people is the fear that people won’t read something that’s unfamiliar to them, or they might not think it’s for them, or that there’s anything for them to relate to in that book,” McQuiston continues.

“I would say there’s a much greater number of people who can relate to wanting to be slutty and full of great food in Europe than there are people who can relate to Theo’s gender journey.”

But there is always the possibility that those unsuspecting readers could relate in ways they didn’t imagine they would. “So, yeah, it’s like a light Trojan Horse situation. You thought you were just here for food and sex, and it turns out, you’re also here to come with me on a gender-revelatory journey.”

The Pairing is narratively split in two: it’s chronological, but the first half is told from Theo’s perspective, and the second from Kit’s.

Theo’s section is dotted with hints that their sense of self has changed since they last saw Kit but the coming out scene, in inverted commas, is told from Kit’s perspective. It’s largely wrapped up in the space of two pages, an intentional decision by the author.

“As somebody who is non-binary and queer, and has a ton of non-binary queer people in my life, yes, we do sit around and have philosophical conversations about gender and sexuality all the time,” they say. “However, it’s not something that is the first thing that I’m thinking about or worried about when I’m on a transcontinental food-and-wine tour. I’m more concerned about what am I going to eat next.”

Kit changes the pronouns he uses for Theo with ease, and before long, they’re back to eating sugar-dusted pastries and sipping Campari spritzes.

“It was an important moment for Theo to open up to Kit and bring that final wall down but I didn’t want it to feel like this teachable moment,” McQuiston says.

However, the conversation does change the pair’s dynamic. Having been strangers for four years, Kit and Theo re-enter a place where their connection is not only physical, but also emotional. “That might make more sense than anything you’ve ever said to me,” Kit says when Theo explains how they feel in their gender. “Of course, that’s you. That’s been you for ever.”

McQuiston goes on to say: “I think there’s something really, really beautiful in that and I wanted that moment to happen on the page at a point when it had been earned. I wanted [it] to feel like a genuinely vulnerable moment between two people who had finally reached a place of trust between each other again.”

One of The Pairing’s key strap lines, McQuiston says, is taken from Swedish pop superstar Robyn’s 2010 song “Fembot”, in which she robotically declares that she is “initiating slut mode”.

Before they reunite, Kit and Theo embark on a tour of Europe’s human delicacies, tallying up their conquests as part of a doomed “I’m so over you” declaration. Their body count includes a Moulin Rouge dancer in Paris, a yacht owner in Monaco and a chocolatier in Barcelona. 

The author is known for their unabashedly queer sex scenes, but The Pairing takes things up a notch, not only in the horn department – there’s pegging, polyamory, sex in an Italian workmen’s shack – but also in how sex is used to inform the characters’ sense of self and their understanding of each other. 

“Sex positivity doesn’t just mean having lots of sex, it also means working through the shame or embarrassment around every aspect of sex and intimacy,” McQuiston says. Having grown in a Catholic family and been educated in Christian schools, they are very aware of how much sex can be stigmatised, and the impact that can have.

“Especially for Americans, our culture is so weird about sex and so many leftovers of Puritanism pervade American culture… we’re either hyper-sexualised, or we’re so sex negative,” they say. “We can’t seem to figure out our way through the centre to being accepting of our own desires.”

In writing The Pairing, McQuiston had the opportunity to confront what they were taught, and write sex as it’s meant to be perceived: something fun. 

“Being somebody who writes romance for a living involves a lot of me processing my own hang-ups around how shameful and embarrassing it felt the first time I was like: ‘Yeah, guys, I write romance. This is my job’. I really am still working through that but I’ve come so far,” they say.

“It’s really important when you’re writing to characters who are super sexual that not only do they not have shame about their own desires, but they also don’t have shame about doing all the due diligence that needs to be done in order to be a slut.”

When McQuiston’s characters are initiating slut mode, it has famously gone down well, if you will, with their readers. When the Red, White & Royal Blue film came out last summer, Alex and Henry became the raunchy queer couple who launched a thousand memes. 

That is in part due to McQuiston themself, who knows how to craft characters so intently that readers are welcomed into a world rather than just a story.

So much so, that they have already began a follow-up to the new book, following two side characters – which ones is top secret for now.

When McQuiston’s characters finally get together, or take their relationship to the next step, fans rejoice as though it’s their friends they’re reading about. It’s no different with The Pairing.

In the weeks leading up to it being published, McQuiston has shared carefully curated graphs and diagrams about who Kit and Theo are, from their star signs to the contents of their backpacks. The writer’s comment sections have been filled with fans waiting impatiently to meet their new favourite characters.

Much like Red, White & Royal Blue’s “History, huh?” line, which has become almost prophetic among the book’s fans, McQuiston can think of a few key moments in The Pairing that might come to define the story for readers: when Kit and Theo go swimming early in the story, or the climactic confession scene towards the end in Palermo.

But the author’s favourite comedy moment is when the try to explain what “cum gutters” are to a Swedish couple on their tour.

“I’m so emotionally invested in them as people and as characters. When you have a readership that exists already, it’s also like bringing your new partner home to meet your family. I sound like I think my characters are real people, which I don’t,” McQuiston laughs.

“But the emotional stakes feel that high, for sure.”

The Pairing is out now.