My name is Rachel and I have been dreaming of owning my own bookstore since I was about 6 years old when I saw Beauty and the Beast for the first time. I have always been drawn to fantasy and trying to see the whimsiness of life and wanting life to feel a little magical.

I am a former elementary school teacher and a mama of two kiddos, both of whom are ravenous readers like me! Our family lived abroad for 10 years before settling in Fort Collins in 2022. I crave community and building a stronger connection to other like minded people and this bookshop was created with that goal in mind- to find all the whimsical people in NoCo and beyond and grow our ties to one another.

Heart of the Wood Bookshop is named after a song by one of my favorite musical artists, Kacey Musgraves. Her song “Sounds from the Heart of the Woods” is the soundtrack to my home- filling our rooms with the sounds of birds, babbling brooks, and the gentle strum of a guitar.

When coming up with the concept for this bookshop, I wanted it to be heavily tied to nature and this sense that you were walking through the woods and have stumbled on a little cottage of magic.