Ramblings From This Chick: My First Love Event with Ginger Scott

Friday, April 5, 2019

My First Love Event with Ginger Scott

Ginger Scott is an Amazon-bestselling and Goodreads Choice Award and Rita Award-nominated author from Peoria, Arizona. She is the author of several young and new adult romances, including recent bestsellers Cry Baby, The Hard Count, A Boy Like You, This Is Falling and Wild Reckless.

A sucker for a good romance, Ginger's other passion is sports, and she often blends the two in her stories. She has been writing and editing for newspapers, magazines and blogs for pretty much ever. She has told the stories of Olympians, politicians, actors, scientists, cowboys, criminals and towns. For more on her and her work, visit her website at http://www.littlemisswrite.com.

When she's not writing, the odds are high that she's somewhere near a baseball diamond, either watching her son field pop flies like Bryce Harper or cheering on her favorite baseball team, the Arizona Diamondbacks. Ginger lives in Arizona and is married to her college sweetheart whom she met at ASU (fork 'em, Devils).

Ginger Scott's Secret Crush on... Someone... way back when...

Ok. I'm going to use code words for the sake of Facebook-landia because said Wicked Crush is a real person and he's out there, and maybe connected and...yeah... Turns out I'm still 16 in my soul and a total chicken inside, even happily married with a nearly 16-year-old son! LOL!

I know the prompt was to write about my first love, but I thought it might be a little more intriguing to share what I'm about to share with you. My first big love, for the record, was David Hanson, and it was kindergarten, and he was a perfect boy, a perfect friend, and he grew up to be a very perfect gentleman. If I could find him on Facebook I would...I've tried.

I thought I'd throw a twist on this, though. I want to talk about those crushes that we keep entirely to ourselves. I've had a few, most very fleeting. But I had one that lingered. It was high school. He was quiet...broody in fact.  Not mean, just--difficult to break into. I was friends through friends with him. Mostly because I have always been the wallflower of awkwardness, not at the drinking parties but instead at home watching Star Trek Next Generation with my parents. He was at the parties. In some ways, it wasn't really a party without him there.

Sigh.

I saw pictures sometimes. And not the convenient IG ones on social media that girls get to swoon over in private today. I had to wait for real-ass polaroids or one of my partying friends to develop their damn roll of film. He even held a beer in the coolest possible way. I always noted that in the pictures.

FYI: I am over forty and I still do not hold a beer in a cool way. I don't like beer. I make a great designated driver.

I was at a few school events with him, again, connected by friends of friends. I'd politely laugh at the end of his jokes and then feel really stupid when it was painfully obvious that I didn't get it, or wasn't standing there for the entire joke. Caught faking. I'd walk a little taller when I passed him in the hall, and yes...I even tried to flutter my eyes and pout my lips. I have since recreated that look in the mirror to see what it looks like - it's really bad. I look ridiculous. I no longer do this except to make my husband gut-bust laugh.

I saw him have dates for dances, but I never saw him with a serious girlfriend. His friends all did, and his brothers did. But not him. He remained this mystery. I watched him play football and baseball. I could pick out his form from across the field while I was at practice.

I never once uttered a word about how attracted I was to this boy that looked so damn fine in a ball cap to any of my friends. In fact, this is the very first time I have ever publicly danced around it. And no...his identity stays put, in secret, for now. But I will share this -- there is one character that I have written that was inspired, just a little bit...maybe a hair more than a little bit, by him. Happy guessing and wondering ;-)

Ginger

A coming-of-age romance inspired by Great Expectations

My life was irrevocably changed the moment I stepped foot inside Elena Alderman’s grand front doors. A lifeless tomb on the edge of Chicago’s South Side, the Alderman home sat in one of the city’s oldest and wealthiest neighborhoods, and Elena Alderman was the queen.
She was also mad.

Not the kind of madness that’s readily apparent. No, her psychopathy was far more surgical—more…insidious. She was surrounded by beautiful things—most notably her grand piano and her adopted son, Henry.

I fell in love with both.

My gift blossomed when my fingers touched her black and white keys. But my life began when I became haunted by the boy. Henry Alderman was a handsome blend of arrogance and seduction, and as we grew up together, I found it more and more impossible to separate him from my thoughts. I envied his life. I imagined how my name—Lily—would look with his. I became his closest friend…and more. I gave him my kiss, locked away his secrets, and loved him even when it was hard to.

But we were just a game. Elena Alderman made the rules. And when she decided to change them, she broke everything.

Almost.