New Winchester bookstore Offers an ‘Enchanting’ Experience

Looking for an enchant­ed — you could say mag­i­cal — expe­ri­ence in Winchester? Are you a lover of romance, fan­ta­sy, sci-fi, or young adult fic­tion? Or both? Look no fur­ther than Book Nook on Main, a recent­ly opened busi­ness in town.

Located on the sec­ond floor at 2 S. Main St. in suite 200, the new store also offers appar­el and book-relat­ed mer­chan­dise. The store is open six days a week, Tuesday through Sunday, from 1 to 8 pm.

Even before vis­i­tors enter the store, the mag­ic begins as they stroll through an entrance hall beneath a light­ed green leafy arbor. Once inside, the mag­ic kicks up a notch.

It’s a feast for the sens­es. The light­ing is mut­ed, but real­is­tic green vines hang from the ceil­ing, dec­o­rat­ed with more mini lights. A fan­tas­ti­cal mur­al adorns one wall. A con­struct­ed “tree” stands near one corner. 

Another cor­ner in the rear of the main room con­tains a cozy read­ing area with com­fort­able chairs, a roar­ing elec­tric fire­place, and a video screen with sooth­ing images — sur­round­ed by three huge win­dows reveal­ing an expan­sive view of Main Street.

Of course, there are books. Not a lot of books — this is a niche book store, after all — but if your jam includes the gen­res they stock, the inven­to­ry is deep if not wide. The book dis­plays are var­ied, and unlike what one is like­ly to find in larg­er book­stores. In fact, there is an entire adults-only room, clev­er­ly con­cealed behind a bookcase!

The chil­dren aren’t left out, either, as the store fea­tures a selec­tion of children’s books.

The store is owned by Bryanna Bowman and her hus­band, James. (James insists Bryanna is the own­er, but she says it’s a 50/50 proposition.)

“I was born in Illinois,” Bryanna told us. “But I grew up here in Winchester. We moved here when I was in ele­men­tary school. I met my hus­band in high school.”

James is the own­er of High Speed Collectibles, locat­ed on the ground floor of the same build­ing that hous­es his wife’s book­store. It was his sug­ges­tion that prompt­ed Bryanna to jump into busi­ness for herself.

“Three or four months ago, we were hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion. I knew that she was pas­sion­ate about books. And Winchester didn’t have a book­store yet, and, that’s exact­ly the rea­son why we start­ed the card shop in the first place. It didn’t have a card shop, so we’re con­stant­ly think­ing of ideas of what we could bring to Winchester so we could give peo­ple places to go, fun things to do, instead of always hav­ing to go to Lexington or Mount Sterling.”

He said the cou­ple didn’t want to make the new busi­ness “just anoth­er book­store,” but some­thing special.

“That’s why when you walk in here, it’s basi­cal­ly like an enchant­ed for­est as soon as you step out in the hall­way. So it gives that vibe. I want­ed to cre­ate the secret door to the hid­den room, not just to sep­a­rate it from the kids, but also [to appeal to] they’re called book girlies on TikTok. That’s what a lot of them read . . . they real­ly like dark romance, so I was like, what can we do to make that expe­ri­ence special?”

Bryanna described the gen­res of books avail­able in the store.

“We spe­cial­ize in roman­ta­sy books, which is [a fusion of] fan­ta­sy and romance, but we also want­ed to have a good selec­tion for oth­ers as well. We have thriller, sci-fi, a bit of hor­ror, and self-help. We also have a good selec­tion of young adult books. Children’s books as well, and we also have man­ga. And then we have a lit­tle bit of romance and also dark romance.”

I don’t know much about the roman­ta­sy genre or “book girlies.” What I do know is that the Bowmans suc­ceed­ed in their dream of cre­at­ing some­thing dif­fer­ent: enchant­ed for­est, cozy cor­ner, hid­den room, and all.