Author Spotlight: Stefany Valentine Reclaims the Adoptee Narrative in “First Love Language”
Stefany Valentine’s favorite Mandarin Chinese word means “love” — 愛 (ài). “I like the word for ‘love,’” she said a bit shyly during our conversation in a Taipei café. The debut author (who was adopted from Taiwan) also pointed out, 愛 as in “可愛” (kě’ài) or cute. “Everything in Taiwan is 可愛!” Valentine exclaimed emphatically with a laugh.
A few months ahead of First Love Language’s release date, EnVi Media met up with Valentine in Taipei while she was visiting the city. Although the café is a dream for literature lovers, with shelves stuffed with books and cozy couches nestled into cozy corners, that was not the most special part about this meeting. On January 1, Valentine posted, “Um so I just got off the phone with someone who might know my bio mom?!” on X. A day later, the Taiwanese American writer came back with this update: “Update-my bio mom IS alive and she has my number!! She’s not ready to talk to me yet but I can’t wait to talk to her!!!”
Fast forward seven months, and Valentine gets settled in at Weiyang Coffee with her husband — and her biological mother. Twenty-five years later, Valentine and her mom have been reunited, an emotional journey Valentine touches on in First Love Language. In a candid and vulnerable conversation, EnVi chatted with the Taiwanese American author about her debut novel and reclaiming adoptee narratives.
The Roots of First Love Language
First Love Languages opens with this line: “ If home is where the heart is, then a broken home must mean that a heart is broken, too.” Readers first meet Catie Carlson during a tumultuous time when her life is not only being uprooted to Utah, but her biological father also recently passed away. Over the 300-page romantic dramedy, Catie grapples with shifting relationships while trying to figure out who she is as an adopted Taiwanese American teenager.
“The main character’s background is very similar to mine,” Valentine admitted. “[It’s] almost like a self-insert.” In First Love Language, Catie’s biological parents are divorced, although her bio dad remarried, and she was adopted by her stepmom when her dad died. She also has been raised Mormon and “has an identity crisis” in the book.
That’s the drama part of that dramedy that is First Love Language. The rom-com part comes in when Catie agrees to “teach” a cute boy (and cosmetologist) named Toby how to date by taking him out on dates inspired by the five love languages. The reason? He speaks Mandarin, and it’s only through him that she can re-learn her first language.
Valentine’s debut novel “sits on the cusp” of being a rom-com and a contemporary romance. “Yes, it is a romance. Yes, there is a happily ever after,” the author emphasized. “But so much of the story is about Catie falling in love with herself and not necessarily Catie falling in love with Toby.” Rather, the “two kind of happened simultaneously.” Because of these important details, Valentine’s editor suggested calling First Love Language a “romantic dramedy” because “it’s a little bit of drama, it’s a little bit of comedy, it’s a little bit of romance.”
“It’s D) All of the above, I like to say,” Valentine noted cheekily.
The new novel has it all: adoption feels, healing from the loss of a parent, moving, touches of exploring relationships with religion, relearning languages (and love languages), friendship and family feels, and romance. But Valentine started with a singular point.
“In 2020 when the pandemic hit, there was so much Asian hate, and it gave me a chance to really dig deep into my personal Asian roots and my relationship with my Asian heritage,” she shared. “And I realized, I don’t have one. The relationship I have with my Asian heritage is an estrangement because of the divorce, because of the adoption, because of being biracial and everything,” Valentine continued.
However, after hearing other people’s stories about being Asian and their experiences, she realized “there’s actually quite a few of us who feel very estranged.” This is where First Love Language was born. Valentine also asked herself, “If I could have anything back, what would it be?” She answered her question honestly: “It was a family [and] the language that was my first language, which was Mandarin.”
Creating First Love Language
Unpacking relationships with languages is at the foundation, but, of course, Valentine later wove love languages into Catie and Toby’s story. During our conversation, the author revealed that her love language is “definitely quality time.” As an adoptee, she noted, it makes sense.
“I feel like because I miss my mama so much; it’s a wound in my heart, and so for me to feel fulfilled, I need quality time,” Valentine explained. In solidarity with those who might have had similar experiences, especially fellow adoptees, she shared a more vulnerable memory from when she was younger. If someone left Valentine for a little too long — even if it was a situation like “Hey, I’m just gonna go down the street” — it caused her to go into “panic mode.”
“It wasn’t until I was…coming out of the adoptee fog…I was like, ‘Whoa, there’s a reason. There’s a reason for it,’” she emphasized. “It was so validating, though, more than anything,” Valentine added. “People were like, ‘Why are you freaking out?’” but this reaction makes sense as an adoptee who has been forcibly separated from their birth family.
As Valentine underscored, “Your body carries trauma, even if your mind doesn’t.”
She channeled these thoughts into First Love Language, but getting to publication was not easy. Valentine’s motivation? Her mom.
“I hope I can say this without choking up because I feel like I’m in a very vulnerable space [having just reconnected with her birth mom],” she shared. “My mom has a level of perseverance that all of my siblings share, and so now that I’ve met her, I can see how she’s persevered and how hard of a worker she is.”
“She’s helped me write this book because it would not have happened unless I had persevered,” Valentine stated firmly.
But unlike its title, First Love Language is not the first book Valentine wrote. It is actually the eighth completed manuscript. “It took me 10 years of writing failed manuscripts before I finally landed an agent,” she said. That agent is Ann Rose from the Tobias Literary Agency. She “saw potential” in the story and encouraged Valentine to undergo three rounds of revisions before submitting it to editors. However, at the time, there were no bites for publication.
“Then I wanted to revise [the manuscript] on my own because I felt that I had become an even better author in the year after [Ann Rose] signed me,” Valentine added. After 18 months of rewriting and editing, First Love Language finally had a home. Senior Editor Elizabeth Lee at Penguin Workshop, an imprint of Penguin Random House, picked it up.
Valentine took EnVi through the memory, as she recalled, “I don’t know why, but I just knew Elizabeth was going to be my editor.” She added, “I was close, and I wasn’t gonna let this opportunity go.” Per Lee’s request, Valentine revised the first 50 pages and sent the more polished manuscript back to the editor. A few days later, Lee came back with an offer.
“It was a lot of perseverance, but it was also hard luck,” the author noted in retrospect. “The universe was waiting for the right moment.” And boy, is it the right moment. Although First Love Language still had half a year until its publication date at the time of this conversation, Valentine not only reconnected her birth mom, but also got to spend time with her — and in Taiwan, too. Some things really do happen for a reason.
Uncovering More Love
While the novel explores grief and loss, the pages of First Love Language equally burst with love. One of Valentine’s favorite parts to write was Toby and Catie’s meet cute and when Toby “realizes he needs a dating coach.” At this point in the story, he and Catie are just coworkers at his family’s hair salon. As soon as Toby’s crush comes into the salon, he is a bumbling mess, and Catie accidentally lets a small white lie slip that she has dating experience. She also offers to help Toby “practice” dating in exchange for Mandarin lessons.
“That scene was very, very fun for me to write,” Valentine noted with a smile.
When she was writing Toby, she “really wanted to create a compelling male character.” And the only way to do that was for Valentine to think about “who [she] would be attracted to, ideally.” The author added, “I hope it comes off very queer-coded.”
Like Catie, Valentine was raised Mormon. “I was told that I was going to marry a man,” she said honestly. “Then, as I was writing First Love Language, I was slowly coming out of the closet myself.” Out of this journey came Toby, who is more of an “effeminate man” with dyed purple hair and a love for cosmetology. (Valentine’s upcoming book slated for winter 2026, Love Makes Mochi, touches more on queer identity.)
But there is even more to love about Toby. “I love that he is kind of like Catie. He’s very much like her, in the sense that Catie keeps all these secrets inside but it doesn’t feel like a secret,” Valentine shared. “He’s this kind of shy, timid character on the surface, but then once you get to know him and fall in love with him like Catie does, you realize, ‘Oh, he’s in a lot of emotional pain as well. He carries a lot of baggage as well,’” she mused.
Still, writing the book wasn’t always easy. “Some of the tougher scenes for me to write were obviously about adoption trauma and everything,” Valentine mentioned. Yet, at the same time, these parts of the book were “so healing to write.”
For example, there is a flashback scene “when [Catie] could understand English, [but] she couldn’t speak it.” Valentine pointed out, “I’m not sure if that’s [a] universal immigrant experience, but it kind of ties into the whole language element of [First Love Language].” She paused for a moment, then added, “I cried many times writing and revising that chapter.”
Another “emotional” chapter to write was one that was “heavily-inspired” by Valentine’s late father. A letter appears in the novel — written by Catie’s late biological dad — and the last line found in that letter is the same one Valentine’s father wrote to her on his deathbed. “Take your time coming home to me,” it says.
In a nutshell, “there’s a lot of grief; there’s a lot of celebration” in the adoptee experience, although this experience is very diverse. “I think that’s why we say frequently that there’s no one adoptee experience — there’s no universal adoptee experience,” said Valentine.
Your Experiences Are Valid
During our conversation, Valentine also shared her experience reconnecting with her biological mom. “I feel like I’ve always known that I am Taiwanese, and it used to just be this abstract island in the Pacific,” she began. “The more that I’ve gotten to know my mom, the more my definition of Taiwanese has changed,” Valentine added, getting a little choked up as she wiped away some tears. “It’s my home, it’s my family, it’s my personality.”
The debut author had some wise words for fellow adoptees: “You are valid in every way.” Valentine firmly stated, “And the complexities, you don’t have to explain [them] to other people. You are valid in what you feel.”
“From going from in the [adoptee] fog to the transition to being out of it to reunification — that’s all under the umbrella of the adoptee experience,” she noted. “I’ve said this over and over and over again, but there’s no one universal experience for [being an adoptee]. Because if you asked me 10 years ago, what I’m telling you now is not what I would have said [then],” Valentine stressed. “But it’s still my adoptee experience. It’s constantly growing and changing in various ways.”
Just like Valentine emphasized throughout the interview — and what First Love Language shows readers, both those who are adoptees and those who are not — “Whatever it is that you’re going through, it’s valid.”
Keep up with Stefany Valentine on Instagram, X, and her website. First Love Language — and When We Become Ours, an adoptee anthology Valentine contributed to — are available wherever you purchase books.
Want to read more conversations with debut authors? Check out EnVi’s author spotlight with Trinity Nguyen here!
