A Bookstore That Brings the Stories to You
A moody Victorian library isn’t exactly what most people expect to find inside a trailer.
But step inside TBR on Tour and that is exactly what Suzie Vasquez has created: a mobile bookstore with dark wood shelves, a copper ceiling, candlelight and rows of books written exclusively by women.
The bookstore travels around the Kitsap Peninsula, bringing its curated collection to markets, wineries, breweries, book clubs and private events. But for Vasquez, TBR on Tour is about more than bringing books to readers. She wants the trailer to create a place where people linger, discover new stories and connect with one another.
“The first thing people do is just kind of look around,” Vasquez said. “They’re just in awe because the decor in there is very specific.”
Women, in particular, often tell her they want to recreate the atmosphere at home.
“Women say constantly, ‘I want to decorate my bedroom like this,’ or ‘I want a she-shed just like this,’” she said. “It has its own ambiance.”
A bookstore with a point of view
Inside the trailer, the books reflect Vasquez’s vision.
“My bookshop was always going to be woman focused,” she said. “Men’s voices are amplified all over throughout time. Women’s voices are always silenced.”
TBR on Tour carries six genres written by women: romance, romantasy, dark romance, mystery/thriller, historical fiction and popular fiction.
Within those categories, Vasquez tries to give readers plenty of options.
“In romance, I’ve got cowboy romances, sports romance, LGBTQ romance,” she said. “People come up and say, ‘Did you even realize there were this many romance authors?’ I’m like, ‘I had no idea.’”
The focus on women authors was part of Vasquez’s plan from the beginning, even when others questioned it.
During a business class she took while developing the idea, Vasquez said the instructor pushed back when she explained that she intended to spotlight women authors.
“He said, ‘Why would you do that?’” she said. “He said, ‘Well, good luck to you. I hope that goes well.’”
“At first I was kind of second-guessing myself,” she added. “Then I thought, no — that right there is the reason why you’re gonna do what you do.”
She has made one small concession to the men who accompany their partners to the trailer.
After noticing husbands and boyfriends waiting outside while women browsed, Vasquez added a spinning bookcase outside the trailer featuring books by male authors.
“So the male perspective is there,” she said. “It’s just not in the trailer, which is a very feminine forward. It’s not the main event.”
From a dream to a bookstore on wheels
The idea for TBR on Tour began with a layoff.
Vasquez had spent 30 years in corporate America when she was laid off last September at age 61. The prospect of finding another corporate job was less appealing than it might have been earlier in her career.
“Being 61, number one, is really hard,” she said. “When you fill out the resume, or you apply, and you know certain dates stand out to people. They get a feeling for your age, right? And so there was that issue, but also I didn’t want to go back to corporate America — the political side of it, all the travel.”
Her husband eventually asked what she would do if she could do anything.
“I said, ‘Open a bookstore,’” Vasquez said. “I’ve always been a reader, an avid reader.”
She began exploring what it would take to make that dream a reality. She took a business class through Kitsap Community Resources and started researching the cost of opening a traditional bookstore.
The price tag was about $250,000.
Then her husband saw a video on TikTok featuring a mobile bookstore.
“One day my husband was on TikTok and he saw this mobile bookstore on a video, and he goes, ‘Hey, what about this?’” Vasquez said. “Of course, I was all Miss Pouty. ‘We don’t even have a truck. We don’t have a trailer. How will that even work?’”
“I woke up and said, ‘Okay, let’s do it. Let’s get a truck. Let’s get a trailer,’” she said. “I said, ‘But can you build the inside of this to look like a Victorian library? Like a Bridgerton-themed library?’”
Her husband agreed.
“I’ll be gosh darned if that man did not build me a Victorian moody library,” she said. “Complete with a copper ceiling. He did things I had no idea he had the skills to do.”
Vasquez took over the decorating.
“Give me a room to decorate and watch out, because I’m gonna do it,” she said.
She found pieces at antique stores and on Facebook Marketplace, creating the atmosphere that has become one of the business’s defining features.
Finding a community on the road
Vasquez initially envisioned TBR on Tour primarily traveling to markets and fairs. That changed after she attended a women’s business retreat in Port Ludlow.
“Because of these professional women and the networking we did and the educators that came in, my vision expanded 1,000%,” she said. “Now I have a website. I have future business ideas that are not markets and fairs.”
The business now works with wineries, breweries and other organizations and offers the mobile bookstore for everything from silent book clubs to private celebrations.
Vasquez has partnered with Silver City Taproom, 11 Winery and Sisters’ Cider House, among others.
The trailer itself often becomes a gathering place.
“People will be walking through and they’ll start chatting with each other. ‘Oh my gosh, have you read that?’ ‘That book right there is amazing,’” she said.
Her book clubs have created another way for readers to connect.
One began with women who responded to a post on a Kitsap women’s business page. The group brought together people from very different professions and backgrounds.
“These are all women I didn’t know,” she said. “Last night was our first meeting, and we had an Air Force lawyer, two legal professionals, a biologist, a physician’s assistant, an energy healer, and a realtor. All of us from all different walks of life came together to discuss a book.”
The conversations don’t necessarily stay focused on the book.
“Of course, when you’re discussing the books and the topics within the book, it leads to your life,” she said. “What’s happening in this world, et cetera, et cetera.”
More than selling books
The business has given Vasquez something she didn’t expect when she left corporate America.
“Opening this mobile bookshop has restored my faith in humanity,” she said. “All you hear on the news and online are horrible people and stories, and yet the people I’m meeting are amazing.”
She has watched customers enthusiastically recommend books to one another and authors approach her about carrying their work.
At a recent Bite of Kitsap event, an author brought Vasquez three signed copies of her new book simply to share.
“Where do you meet people like that in regular life?” Vasquez said.
After decades in corporate America, the interactions have changed her perspective.
“Now, most of the people — 90% of the people I meet — are just really good people,” she said. “I love it. It’s a good reminder that most people are good.”
That sense of connection has also changed how Vasquez defines success.
“When I first started, success to me was doing four markets a month,” she said. “Then I got a taste of eight times a month, then ten. I just think I want more — I’m having so much fun meeting people, being a part of the community, creating a connection within the community.”
There are still the ordinary challenges of running a small business — taxes, inventory, weather-dependent events and managing the operation largely on her own.
But the bottom line isn’t her only measure.
“If I’m having fun, the people around me are having fun, and I’m able to place really cool books into really cool people’s hands, that’s successful,” she said.
And perhaps that’s the simplest explanation for why a bookstore on wheels works.
TBR on Tour doesn’t require readers to find their way to a bookstore. Instead, Vasquez brings the bookstore to places where people are already gathering — and gives them another reason to step inside, linger and talk.
“I hope they take away a love of reading,” Vasquez said. “Even a blind date with a book, where you’re taking a chance and maybe you’re going to find new authors. A feeling of connection with fantasy, with leaving reality as it is — because reality kind of sucks sometimes — and living stories that people have taken the time to write, that their heart’s in too.”
For Vasquez, the dream that began with a question over dinner has become more than a bookstore. It is a small Victorian library that happens to have wheels — and wherever it parks, it gives people a place to find a story, and sometimes, each other.
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