Our Story
Two book lovers, one lantern, and a shelf that travels.
Drawn to the same light
Katelyn and Torin came from opposite sides of the country — Katelyn born and raised right here in Florida, Torin all the way from New Jersey — but the universe had other plans. Four years ago, our paths crossed, and we built a life together, blending our families into one home full of kids, books, and everything a little weird and spooky.
We both loved literature — the strange, the haunting, the stories other people were afraid to tell. For years, we each quietly dreamed of opening a space that felt like home for every kind of reader and writer. Neither of us knew the other was carrying that same dream until this year, when a conversation about the bookstore we wished existed in our own area turned into a plan — and the plan turned into Moth & Lantern.
Torin says Katelyn is the lantern, and they are the moth — drawn to her light, the way this whole shop was built to draw readers toward the stories they've been looking for.
Driven by passion
Katelyn is a multi-title published author, author mentor, and speaker. Torin is currently working on his own novel. Together, we built the shop we always wanted to walk into ourselves: no lease, no landlord, just a shelf of indie and local authors you can actually meet.
Every title on our shelf came from an author we can reach by phone. Nothing gets stocked because a sales rep put it in a catalog — every book arrives through consignment, sold in partnership with the person who wrote it. We're dedicated to featuring indie authors alongside BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, disabled, and neurodivergent voices — no AI-generated books, ever. Every page, every stroke, is made by a human hand.