My Thrifting Obsession Comes Out in Marie

I finally, after 5 - Clark just reminded me it’s 6 - freaking years of living here in this small city in metrowest Boston, got our town recycling center sticker.

Which means Clark is worried.

See, I love getting things for free. LOVE IT. I love getting free things off the side of the road. “Stop the car!” makes me a lot like Emily from the Emily and Jason crunchy videos. Watch some of her videos when they’re driving around and she sees free stuff on the road LOL.

Our recycling center has “The Swap Shack.”

Today I came home with this:

Clark loves audiobooks, and he’s on a fantasy novel kick, so it’ll be fun to give him these and watch him try to be upset I came home with “more crap” LOL.

When we’re done with them, we’ll take them back to the Swap Shack and some other person can benefit.

There’s a scene coming up in Shopping for a Highlander’s Elopement that involves a yard sale. This is from Amy’s perspective, back at their childhood home in Mendon, Massachusetts. When I wrote it, it fit Marie to a T. But then Clark decided it’s um…. a bit about me:

"Where's Mom?" I ask as Carol kicks off her shoes by the door.

"She drove past a yard sale and saw some uranium glass on a table. Texted me to come join her. No way."

"Oh, boy. We won't see her until next Monday."

"Yeah. It was the end house of a cul-de-sac and I saw a sign that said 'Neighborhood Yard Sale.' Probably should have slapped an Air Tag on her for tracking purposes."

You can preorder the book now, which comes out June 10:

I didn’t expect to fall for a Scottish footballer so annoyingly sunny you need shades to be around him.

I didn’t expect to say yes to his heart-felt, if loopy, proposal while he lay injured on the pitch, blathering on about banana pudding and sparkly unicorns.

What I definitely didn’t expect?

For our engagement to explode into a paparazzi circus, our mothers to turn into wedding bulldozers, and for our wedding protector's perfectly reasonable elopement plan to spiral into a roadtrip escape.

So here we are.

In Love You, Maine, a town that celebrates Valentine’s Day every single day. We’re here to get married. Quietly. No drama. In disguise.

Although good luck hiding a 6’5” ginger Scottish striker wearing a knee brace and a perpetual extrovert smile.

Instead of being subtle and blending in? Our quiet escape is vibrating heart-shaped beds, mirrors on the ceilings, secret identities, interfering mothers, and one suspiciously enthusiastic moose that humps dumpsters.

This was supposed to be a simple wedding. Just me and Hamish. No fuss.

But nothing about us has ever been simple with us.

Still, this is what love is, right? It’s chaos. It’s compromise. It’s crying in a wedding planner’s office, then kissing in a hot spring.

It’s choosing each other again and again, even when everything goes sideways.

No matter what comes next... this is our comeback story, in more ways than one.

And no - that’s not a euphemism. :)

Shopping for a Highlander’s Elopement is a romantic comedy that blends the worlds of four bestselling series by New York Times bestselling author Julia Kent:

- Shopping for a Billionaire

- Shopping for a Highlander

- Whatever It Takes

- Love You, Maine

If you love sports romance, surprise proposals, grand gestures, chaotic weddings, Scottish footballers, golden retriever/black cat energy, and characters who love too hard, mess up spectacularly, and always find their way back to each other with plenty of laughter (and lovingly-used scrunchies) along the way, then this laugh-out-loud romantic comedy by Julia Kent is your book.

ANYHOW! I’m looking for fellow yard salers, Swap Shack folks, people who love “zero waste” events, thrift shops, etc. What’s your best find?