Spotlight & Giveaway: FIRST LOVE LANGUAGE by Stefany Valentine

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Stefany Valentine to HJ!

Hi Stefany and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, FIRST LOVE LANGUAGE!

 
Hi! Thank you for taking time out of your day to read about FIRST LOVE LANGUAGE!
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

FIRST LOVE LANGUAGE follows Catie, a seventeen-year-old biracial Taiwanese adoptee as she moves from her comfortable home in San Diego to Salt Lake City. There, she meets Blakanese boy Toby who has just returned from his first semester at the University of Taipei. When Toby asks Catie for help in impressing his crush, Catie agrees to take Toby on practice dates inspired by the love languages in exchange for free Mandarin lessons.
 

Please share your favorite line(s) or quote from this book:

I have too many favorite lines to consolidate so I’ll just provide some of my favorite chapter headers:

A Different Love Language
Red Light, Green Light
Rain Clouds

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• I found my biological mom while this book was being published!
• In the book, Caite finds a note from her late father. The note was loosely inspired by the note my own late father left behind for me. Not very “fun” but I think it’s heartwarming all the same.
• And Toby, the love interest, is a purple-haired baddie. At the time of this interview, I am also a purple-haired baddie.

What first attracts your Hero to the Heroine and vice versa?

I think Catie falls for Toby because he’s a great listener. Throughout the story, he actively puts his best foot forward. But more than anything, Toby has a hidden confidence that Catie sees. He’s secure in his masculinity as hair stylist in a woman dominated industry, even if he doesn’t see that as self confidence.

Meanwhile, Toby is attracted Catie because he admires her tenacity. Catie comes with a lot of backstory and Toby feels a deep connection with her because of it. Catie compliments him in the sense that he has some heartache, too. He can be comfortable with her because he knows he understands him beyond who he is at surface level.

Did any scene have you blushing, crying or laughing while writing it? And Why?

I’d say some of the chapters that made my cry while writing them were A Different Love Language, and Red Light, Green Light, and Tie Breaker

In A Different Love Language, Catie grieves the loss of her father. There were several times in that chapter that I just sat there staring at my computer screen with watery eyes because I also miss my father and wonder who I’d be today if cancer never took him away from me.

In Red Light, Green Light, Catie reminisces her childhood when she was thrust into an English speaking school. My early years in school were traumatizing, to say the least. I was held back in fourth grade as a result of learning English far later than others in my class. I really wanted to do this chapter justice as I had hoped immigrants would relate to Catie’s culture shock and the rippling effects of it.

And on a lighter note, Tie Breaker is the chapter where the final kiss happens . If you love a cheesy , awkward, sweet, curl-your-toes date leading up to “the kiss”–this one is for you. I LOVE first love–especially if it encapsulates the “newness” of firsts. I really wanted Catie and Toby’s moment to feel like a snapshot of teen love.

Readers should read this book….

With their ears!! The audiobook is SO GOOD! The chapter headers are all in Traditional Mandarin so the audiobook narrator, Jen Zhao, says them and it’s just so amazing!!

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have in the works?

I’m working on a couple of things at this time. I’ve got my sophomore title LOVE MAKES MOCHI anticipated to release Feb 2026. I’ve got an adult romcom that I’m planning to polish off and send out on submission. And I’m working on a sapphic dual POV romance proposal to send to the editor of FIRST LOVE LANGUAGE, Elizabeth Lee.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: A print copy of FIRST LOVE LANGUAGE by Stefany Valentine

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: FIRST LOVE LANGUAGE is a story of love, but also one of grief. In what ways do you think love and grief intersect and in what ways do you think they juxtapose?
Catie embarks on a journey to rediscover an aspect of her identity that was lost. What parts of your identity do you feel you have lost? Have you lost anything?
As part of the exploration of language, Catie builds her entire persona off of a lie. In what ways have you lied? What prevented you from telling the truth? How do the various forms of communication impact your relationships?

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 
 

Excerpt from First Love Language:

*Context: Catie has taken Toby on their first Love Language date. The theme is acts of service. They are cooking in a kitchen and Catie thinks she is doing a great job of being a language teacher*

Meanwhile, I’m skimming through Pinterest trying to find something, anything. Eventually, I discover an easy ramen recipe. This one doesn’t require stewing bones for hours. I plop a set of chicken drums and herbs into a pot of water. Toby peeks over my shoulder and quickly realizes what I’m making. Well, there goes that secret.
But try as I might, I can’t figure out what Toby is cooking. He pulls some marinated beef from the freezer, then chops up onions, carrots, and peppers into toothpick slices. He dumps them all onto the skillet, and the air thickens with garlic and toasted sesame oil.
“Okay, I need to know what you’re making.”
Toby fries noodles in another skillet but pantomimes locking his lips and throwing away the key “Can’t. Got this recipe from my aunties in Busan. The marinated beef is a family secret passed down from generation to generation.”
Toby’s words punch me right in the stomach. Maybe it’s our competing smells. Or maybe it’s the fact that no one ever taught me anything about Taiwanese food. That’s the thing about living with rain clouds over my head, I can be in the middle of something so fun and then-snap. I remember that no matter what, part of me is somewhere else.
“What’s wrong?” Toby stops stirring his concoction. Apparently, I’m easier to read than I thought.
Should I tell him what’s really on my mind? Would Toby even understand? He has money and I don’t, He has parents and I don’t. He belongs and I have to force myself to believe that I do, too.
“I wish I was like you” I finally say, not sure why I open up. Maybe it’s because he’s the closest thing I have to Taiwan. And he’s not even Taiwanese. “It’s just…do you ever miss something you’ve never had?”
I dare myself to look at him—to see if this rich boy with a home and parents and secret recipes could ever understand someone like me. And to my surprise, the answer is yes: I see it in his eyes in the way they go distant. I see it in the way his shoulders slump as if there’s an invisible force pulling them down and he’s tired of holding himself up. I see it in the way he twirls a finger around a loose curl, and I hear it in the way he says, “Every day of my life.”
The air is thick with steam. I feel like I should ask Toby what he means. But I know he doesn’t want to talk about it. Because everything about him, from the tilt of his head down to the way his toes are pointed away from me—it all speaks a language of pain I didn’t realize I was fluent in.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

For fans of Frankly in Love and Tokyo Ever After comes a romantic dramedy about finding love and reconnecting with your culture in the most surprising ways.

Taiwanese American Catie Carlson has never fit in with her white family. As much as she loves her stepmom and stepsister, she yearns to understand more about her culture and find her biological mother.

So Catie is shocked when an opportunity comes knocking on her door: Her summer spa coworker, Toby, says he’ll teach her Mandarin. In exchange, she needs to teach him how to date so he can finally work up the courage to ask out his crush. The only problem is that Catie doesn’t actually have any dating experience. But she can fake it.

With her late father’s copy of The Five Love Languages and all his annotated notes, Catie becomes the perfect dating coach. Or so she thinks. As she gets dangerously close to Toby and to finding out what really happened to her biological mom, she realizes that learning the language of love might be tougher than she thought.

Stefany Valentine’s debut novel is both a fresh, fun romance as well as a profound, luminous story about grief, family, transracial adoption, and what it means to truly follow your heart.
Book Links: Amazon | B&N | kobo |
 
 

Meet the Author:

Stefany Valentine is an emerging young adult author. Her first publication is featured in the adoptee anthology, When We Became Ours. Her debut novel is First Love Language and her sophomore title, Love Makes Mochi, is expected to release with Joy Revolution in 2026.
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