Before Fun Fact: I Love You became a swoony, laugh-out-loud YA romance, it was something much smaller: a short story tucked into a missionary care package.

Author Gina Larsen was a young mom when Kirsten—a 15-year-old dancer and babysitter—became part of her family’s life. “She was a huge blessing,” Gina remembers. Kirsten not only babysat the kids but choreographed a dance solo for Gina’s oldest daughter.

When Kirsten left on a church mission, Gina and her kids wanted to send her something that would brighten her holidays. “I knew I wanted to write Kirsten a short story—something funny where she could be the main character,” she said.

The result was a lighthearted chapter full of inside jokes, playful embellishments, and a fictional prank about a vote for “best lips”—a detail drawn from a hilarious college memory of Gina’s. The story was tucked inside a manila envelope and mailed off.

Soon after, Kirsten emailed back in the largest font available. She was laughing, blushing, and thoroughly surprised by how many personal details had been woven into the tale. “I knew you were going to mock me and my unkissed lips!” she wrote.

What began as a prank gift turned into something more. “She had been struggling at the time, and the story lifted her for days,” Gina shared. “That’s when my writing changed. I started writing everything with that mentality—I wanted the reader to feel things.”

Years passed. Life took turns. But that original story stuck in Gina’s memory. In 2017, she pulled up the file and decided to give it new life. She rewrote it from the ground up, reimagined the characters, and eventually titled it Nellie Samsin Is Not in Charge of the Universe.

Then came a long pause—a life-altering injury, recovery, and time away from writing. Gina thought she was done with books.

But in 2023, editor at Shadow Mountain Publishing, Lisa Mangum reached out, asking to see the manuscript. Gina hesitated, unsure it would be a fit. But she sent it anyway. And within weeks, Fun Fact: I Love You was in motion.

What started as a gift of laughter became a heartwarming YA romance about friendship, first love, and letting yourself feel all the feelings.

Fun Fact: I Love You: friends-to-lovers romance, high school senior Nellie has her future all planned out—except for a disastrous first kiss, a hurtful prank, and the unexpected twist of falling in love with her childhood friend. 

Gina Larsen loves to read anything—just as long as there’s kissing. Growing up on a 100-acre dairy farm, she loves animals as much as she loves people. An extrovert married to a funeral director, she manages to run her own eight acres, complete with horses, goats, dogs, cats, and bees—oh! and four children.