If you had told me a couple of years ago that I would own an independent bookstore — much less that I’d be hauling that bookstore around Coastal Georgia inside a trailer — I’m not entirely sure I would have believed you.
But here we are.
Faebles Tomes and Teas started with an idea: books should feel accessible. A bookstore should feel welcoming. And finding your next story should be an experience.
What came after that idea has involved a whole lot of books, a mobile bookstore we call the Faebles Carriage, more spreadsheets than anyone should reasonably have to look at, markets all over Coastal Georgia, loose-leaf tea, late nights, some spectacular ideas, some questionable ones, and an enormous amount of figuring things out as I go.
And because September 22 is American Business Women’s Day, it seems like a pretty good day to finally tell you a little more about the woman behind Faebles — and how this little bookstore came to be.
It Started With a Bit of Depression
A few years ago, I was in a bit of a slump.
Actually, if I’m being fair to myself, it was more than a slump.
The world around us is loud. Social media algorithms have gotten very good at figuring out exactly what will keep us staring at a screen, and sometimes that means pushing negativity directly into our faces until it starts to feel like people are awful and the world is an awful place.
At the same time, my life had become exhausting.
Every Monday morning at 5 a.m., I was on a plane. By 7, I was usually in another state. I wouldn’t make it home again until the wee hours of Saturday morning.
Then I’d turn around and do it again.
I had almost no social life. My relationships were suffering. I was tired.
And I was burning out. Fast.
I’ve always been a reader, but that travel schedule turned me into an audiobook lover. Books became something I could take with me through airports, rental cars, hotel rooms, and all those hours spent somewhere other than home.
Around October or November, I finally realized just how much of a funk I’d fallen into.
And Christmas has always made me happy.
So I did the completely reasonable thing and started decorating early. Any excuse, right?
I put on my noise-canceling headphones and dove deep into an insanely popular 13-book fantasy universe.
Y’all know the one I’m talking about.
I disappeared into the Maasiverse.
And somewhere along the way, something changed.
By the time I’d finished the collective works, I felt more like myself again.
My mind had calmed down.
It was quiet again.
I felt happy. I felt a little more at ease than I had in months. I started finding joy in things again.
And it was nice.
Really, really nice.
That’s when I started thinking about what had just happened.
A book hadn’t changed my work schedule. It hadn’t fixed every stressful thing happening in my life. It hadn’t magically made the world quieter.
But for a little while, it had given me somewhere else to go.
And I needed that.
I know what struggling with your mental health can feel like. And I also know how incredibly easy it is — especially for women — to put ourselves on the back burner while we prioritize quite literally everyone and everything around us.
Work. Family. Relationships. Responsibilities. The never-ending list of things that need to be handled.
Somewhere in there, we’re supposed to remember ourselves too.
Books helped me do that.
So I started wondering:
If books could give me that little bit of comfort, could I help give that feeling to someone else?
And then came the question that ultimately changed everything:
How could I meet people where they already are and bring a little bit of that comfort to them?
That question became an idea.
The idea became a bookstore.
And eventually, that bookstore got wheels.
That’s how Faebles was born.
Meeting People Where They Are
Once I had the idea, I had to figure out what it actually looked like.
I knew I wanted books to be accessible. I knew I wanted the experience to feel warm and welcoming. And I knew I didn’t necessarily want to wait for people to walk through the doors of a traditional bookstore.
I wanted to meet them where they were.
So Faebles Tomes and Teas started small.
Very small.
There wasn’t a beautiful storefront waiting for me. There wasn’t a giant pile of startup money or some perfectly polished business plan that told me exactly what to do next.
There was an idea, a lot of research, and me figuring things out one decision at a time.
And eventually, there was a trailer.
The Faebles Carriage gave that original idea wheels.
Suddenly, the bookstore could go to the community instead of waiting for the community to come to the bookstore.
We could pull into farmers markets and festivals. We could set up in different towns throughout Coastal Georgia. We could bring books into communities that don’t have an independent bookstore right around the corner.
And slowly, Faebles started growing.
Then Came the Tea
The “Tomes” part probably doesn’t require much explanation.
The “Teas” part might.
From the beginning, I wanted Faebles to be about more than simply buying a book. I wanted it to feel like giving yourself permission to slow down for a minute.
Pick out a story.
Make a cup of tea.
Get comfortable.
Escape for a while.
Tea fit naturally into that.
So did our Blind Dates With a Book, which turn choosing your next read into a little experience of its own. So did book boxes, book clubs, gifts, and all the other things we’ve added along the way.
They’re different products, but they’re all connected to the same idea that started Faebles in the first place:
Sometimes you need a little escape.
That’s why the words escape into stories mean so much to me.
They aren’t just something I thought sounded nice underneath a logo.
They’re the whole reason we’re here.
Building a Bookstore One Step at a Time
Owning a bookstore sounds very romantic.
And sometimes it is.
There are days when I’m standing inside the Carriage surrounded by books, talking with someone about a story they loved, helping a kid pick out a $2 book, wrapping a Blind Date With a Book, or watching someone discover something on the shelf that makes their whole face light up.
Those are the moments people see.
There are also spreadsheets.
So. Many. Spreadsheets.
There are invoices and inventory counts and sales tax and websites and shipping boxes and vendor applications and early mornings and late nights.
There are markets when it’s approximately 4,000 degrees outside because Coastal Georgia has never heard of a reasonable summer temperature.
There are books to order, shelves to stock, trailers to haul, emails to answer, social media posts to create, bills to pay and approximately seventeen new ideas running through my head at any given moment.
There are mistakes.
There are things I’ve tried that haven’t worked.
There are things I was absolutely convinced wouldn’t work that somehow did.
And there has been a tremendous amount of learning as I go.
That’s the part of owning a small business that doesn’t always fit neatly into the pretty pictures.
But it’s part of my story, too.
And Then Something Really Cool Happened
At some point, Faebles stopped feeling like an idea I was trying to build and started feeling like something the community had decided to build with me.
People started looking for the Carriage at markets.
Customers came back.
People donated children’s books so we could keep them affordable for other families.
Readers trusted me to wrap up a book without telling them what it was and send them home with a Blind Date.
People joined the Traveling Tome.
Other local businesses gave Faebles space on their shelves so our books and teas could reach people even when the Carriage wasn’t there.
And people started telling other people about us.
That still gets me.
Because every purchase from Faebles represents something much bigger to me than a transaction.
You’re helping this little bookstore keep moving.
Sometimes quite literally.
What Being a Woman in Business Means to Me
Today is American Business Women’s Day.
I could use today to tell you that I’m proud to own a woman-owned independent bookstore.
And I am.
Very much.
But I think what this day makes me think about most is the woman I was before Faebles existed.
The woman getting on that plane every Monday morning.
The woman who was exhausted and burned out and didn’t realize quite how far away from herself she’d gotten.
The woman who put on a pair of headphones, disappeared into a fantasy world for a while, and slowly started feeling like herself again.
She had absolutely no idea what she was about to start.
She didn’t know there would be a Faebles Carriage.
She didn’t know she’d be hauling books around Coastal Georgia.
She didn’t know she’d be building an online bookstore, running a book club, packing subscription boxes, creating partnerships with other small businesses, or dreaming about what Faebles might become next.
She just knew that books had helped her.
And she wondered whether she could use them to help someone else.
I’m really glad she followed that thought.
We’re Still Writing This Story
Faebles Tomes and Teas is still growing.
We’re still experimenting. Still learning. Still finding new communities to visit and new ways to make books accessible.
And I still have some pretty big dreams for this little bookstore.
But the heart of Faebles hasn’t changed since the beginning.
I want you to be able to walk up to the Carriage, find us on a shelf somewhere in your community, open a package from us at home, or visit us online and find something that gives you a little bit of joy.
Maybe it’s a book that makes you laugh.
Maybe it’s a fantasy world you disappear into for thirteen books.
Maybe it’s a mystery you can’t put down.
Maybe it’s a cup of tea and twenty quiet minutes when nobody needs anything from you.
Whatever it is, I hope Faebles gives you permission to take that time.
Because sometimes the world is loud.
Sometimes life is a lot.
And sometimes we all need somewhere else to go for a little while.
That’s why Faebles exists.
Thank you for helping me build it.
And wherever this story goes next, I’m very glad you’re here for it.
— Shannon
Owner, Faebles Tomes and Teas
Escape into stories.