if you have a rough time on mother's day

i wrote a romance book where two people like that get a happy ending <3

It’s been six months since my first novel, Midnights With You, came out, and I’ve been thinking about my original intentions for writing it, now that I have some distance. I’ve been thinking about how hard it was to promote it, and the things I wish I could say about it but feel like I never really quite manage to. (So many months of talking about this book, and I’m still left with the feeling like I haven’t quite expressed myself properly lol!) The characters are fictional, the events didn’t happen, but some of the emotions in this book are so close to my heart, I think I have a real case of “if I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more” when it comes to this story.

The book is about a 17-year-old girl named Deedee whose constant fights with her mom—and unanswered questions about her family and her mom’s past back in the Philippines—keep her up at night. Deedee wants to learn to drive—she’s latched onto it as one of those things you romanticize that will solve all your problems—but her mom has a lot of rules, and one of them is that Deedee isn’t allowed to learn. Then a new family moves in across the street, and Deedee suddenly isn’t alone anymore when she’s up late. There’s a boy across the street who’s always sitting out on his roof at 2 a.m. or driving around in his car. Deedee sneaks out and convinces him to teach her how to drive, and as they meet up in secret for these late-night drives, they start to open up to each other and develop a life-changing connection.

And as I think back on it now, one big intention was: I wanted to write a book where two people who have a hard time loving themselves because painful family relationships did a number on them emotionally get to fall and love, and that challenges and changes them, and they both get to have a happy ending—and start on an arc of healing with their families too, even though none of it is easy or smooth. Specifically, I wanted to write about two characters who both have, in different ways, some painful mommy issues (a mother wound, if you will).

Deedee has a lot of self-loathing that’s tied up in her relationship with her mom—and getting to know Jay, the boy across the street, helps her start to unravel some of the layers behind why her family is the way that it is. He listens in a way that helps her open up, and also she literally ropes him into spying on her mom with her, which leads to some late-night hijinks and a chaotic impromptu road trip. Jay has both daddy issues and mommy issues that are not as immediately apparent, because their trauma isn’t the same (but maybe it rhymes).

I especially wanted to write a story about two children of immigrants grappling with these feelings, because for me, at least, that’s added layers of shame and guilt around confronting it. (Both characters are mixed race Asian Americans—she’s Filipino like me, he’s mixed Viet—with immigrant single moms and absent white dads). The book is dedicated: “For the diaspora kids, for the daughters,” because I wanted to write a story where people I can relate to—dealing with generational trauma and having an ethnic/racial identity that’s confusing to the people around them—get to open up to each other and feel seen and known and understood, even if a relationship can’t solve all their problems.

I wrote something when I shared the dedication on Instagram last year that I’ve come back to again and again in the months since, and I wanted to share it here too:

On one level, Midnights With You is for anyone who wants to read a love story that’s equal parts romantic and sad, or who enjoys slow burn vibes, late-night drives, and an arc of healing.

But at the heart of it, I wrote Midnights With You for the people who have a lot of tangled, complicated feelings around Mother’s Day.

Of course, the groups in this dedication contain multitudes. And I want to be clear: every immigrant mother-daughter dynamic is different. Every Asian mom, every Filipino mom, is a unique individual. There is no single representative story. But I wrote this out of the conviction that I’m also probably not the only one who’s found themselves in a particularly tricky liminal space:

I wrote it for the diaspora kids like me who have felt caught between a society that others them and a family dynamic that hurts them; for the ones who feel torn between wanting to be true and loyal to their (very family-oriented) culture, but whose family relationships cause them a lot of pain.

I wrote it for the children of immigrants with unanswered questions about the ghostly ways the past shows up in the present, and how the people in their lives got to be the way that they are. I wrote this for anyone who feels like their mother’s sacrifice and suffering means their own pain doesn’t matter (but babe, it does). And because it’s the struggle I know, I wrote this one for the daughters.

I wrote this book about fictional people in fictional situations who are untangling knots of pain similar to my own, in the hope that it might help someone else untangle theirs, too.

I hope the people who might get some relief out of reading this story will find it.

Anyway, if you struggle for similar reasons on Mother’s Day—I see you! You’re not alone. You deserve a happy ending.

Love always,

Clare