When Courtney Moffitt forwarded an announcement about a downtown Overland Park bookstore space looking for a new owner to her friend Katie Jones and hinted at taking it over, it was meant to be a joke.
“(It was) kind of like, ‘tell me not to do this,’” Jones recalled with a laugh.
But that’s not how Jones responded.
“She said, ‘Let’s talk about it,’” Moffitt said. “And what started out as a ‘let’s talk about it’ very quickly just became a snowball.”
The “snowball” of an idea became The Inked Page: a new downtown Overland Park bookstore whose name hints at the space’s previous owner, but whose walls and shelves offer something a bit moodier.
The thriller and horror-centered bookstore opened its doors on Saturday, with a grand opening event planned for early October — (intentionally) right at the start of spooky season.
The Inked Page opened at 7942 Santa Fe Drive
- The bookstore occupies a space just off 80th Street and Santa Fe Drive, near Designed to Flaunt and the Peanut.
- Ink & Page occupied that space for roughly five years (first as the Pretty Posy, then as Ink & Page) before its closure this summer.
- The Inked Page is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.
The Inked Page focuses on the darker side
When Moffitt and Jones decided to embark on a new bookstore, they knew they wanted it to offer something that other area stores didn’t.
“Bookstores and small businesses in general are a hard market,” Moffitt said. “But there has been some successful market research shown for genre and niche bookstores specifically. Romance has been what has led that over the last couple of years.”
Knowing that the Kansas City area already offered multiple locally owned romance bookstores, the duo decided to turn in a different direction.
“There is no mystery, thriller, horror-specific bookstore that we found within like three or four hours of us,” Moffitt said. “We do not want to step on the toes of the two really, really good romance bookstores we have. We love them, we’re customers, we do not need to elbow them and be their competition. So we said, what else can we fill a hole for?”
In addition to mysteries, thrillers and horror stories, The Inked Page offers some darker takes on other genres like romance, science fiction and fantasy.
As for the space itself, Moffitt and Jones spent a lot of time turning it into what they affectionately call “your favorite weird aunt’s attic” in terms of its vibe.
The walls (all painted by the duo, with some help from their husbands and relatives) are covered in reds, blacks and dark greens. Antiques from local shops round out what Moffitt and Jones hoped would make a “haunted mansion” feel — spooky and moody, but also cozy and inviting.
“We’re both eclectic people to start with, so we didn’t have to go outside of our realm of what we kind of already liked and gravitated toward,” Jones said.
The Inked Page is a new venture for its owners
Moffitt and Jones, both Wichita natives, originally met while working in bridal styling back home. The Inked Page is their first business of their own.
Their own personal journeys are sprinkled throughout the space — including the heron in its logo and its wallpaper. The shop’s unofficial mascot, Arthur or “Artie” the heron, is named after Jones’ late father.
The day they found out about Ink & Page’s closure also happened to be the birthday of Jones’ father. Over time, the heron came to feel like a meaningful link between the new shop idea, his memory, and Moffitt and Jones’ partnership.
The green couch in the back also sat in the window displays of the bridal shop where Moffitt and Jones met, and a mirror hanging over the cash register also came from that shop. A hanging lamp in the back corner belonged to Moffitt’s grandmother back in the 1960s.
“We wanted people to feel immediately when you walked in that this felt like a cozy, warm place,” Moffitt said. “And the best way to do that is to bring in pieces of home.”
As the shop welcomes in its first customers and readies itself for its first spooky season (complete with events like book clubs), Moffitt and Jones are still processing all of the enthusiasm and support they’ve received from the community even before the doors opened.
“A personal philosophy to just me and my husband is to be a river to our people,” Moffitt said, meaning a source of support and generosity. “It has been really, really both humbling and exciting to see people offer to be our river essentially as well.”
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