Annette Stillson couldn’t believe the wreckage of what had been her bookstore.  

Annette’s Book Nook, previously called the Beach Book Nook, flooded from Hurricane Ian’s storm surge on Sept. 28 at Santini Plaza on Fort Myers Beach, near the southern end of Estero Island. Stillson, a Bonita Springs resident who doesn’t drive, wasn’t able to survey the scene until about a week later. Even then, the reality of the situation didn’t quite register.  

“Wind and rain do not work well with books,” Stillson said. “It pretty much wiped the store out. The plaza got anywhere from 9 to 14 feet of storm surge. Somebody came and got a picture of it during the storm, and the only thing you saw was the roof. The whole entire plaza was underwater.  

“I just felt like a part of me just died. I really thought that was the end of the bookstore.”  

It’s not. Stillson lost about 5,000 books from the flood, but since then, social media campaigns and connections on the Annette’s Book Nook Facebook page have helped her restock for when she hopes to reopen in the summer. 

A GoFundMe page set up by Kathy Kurelko Varian, one of Stillson’s friends, has raised $3,650 of a $15,000 goal. 

The donations of books and money helped lift the spirits of Stillson, who lost some things that were irreplaceable. The items included a German Bible published in 1817 and an assortment of books signed by visiting authors, including New York Times bestselling author Catherine Coulter, who once visited the store.  

“For 13 years, I’ve done quite a few author signings,” said Stillson, who previously owned a laundromat, also in Santini Plaza. “Local authors and authors who have been vacationing in the area. They usually give me a personally signed copy of their book. So I lost a lot of those, 13 years’ worth. And that was a big thing for me, when I took over the book store, opening it up for [independent] authors.”  

So far, about 3,000 books have been donated to her, and they keep arriving. Sometimes, she will open her front door and find new boxes of books on her home’s front porch. Budding mystery writer Bonnie Kistler heard about her plight and sent her a box of signed books, including her new novel, “The Cage.”  

“I’ve just been separating them into categories,” Stillson said. “Inside my house, it was like a path. You went through a path of books, like a whole maze of books, just to get to my kitchen.”  

Since then, she has been organizing them and storing them in boxes in what had been a spare bedroom. “The one room is now filled with the boxes all organized,” she said. “My living room is still my sorting area. I’ve got nine boxes from my dining room to my living room being sorted right now. Every day, there’s books to be sorted and put away.”  

Stillson grew up reading mysteries, like the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys series. 

When Stillson owned the laundromat, she became a frequent visitor to Phyllis Lumley’s bookstore, the Beach Book Nook. When Lumley died in 2009 at the age of 80, Stillson bought it. The bookstore had been operating for 35 years under its third owner when Hurricane Ian hit.  

“I’ve read all my life,” Stillson said. “When I was a kid, I would literally read a book a day. I loved just escaping into a book. That’s how it came to be. I didn’t go to school to be a librarian. I’ve just always loved to read, and I used to visit the bookstore all the time.  

“ … One thing led to another. When she passed away, the bookstore was just sitting there. It became Annette’s Book Nook. But the sign on the store has always been the Beach Book Nook.”  

Just as Stillson had trouble comprehending the scope of the destruction, she also was surprised by the generosity of not just her friends, but of complete strangers who have reached out to her in support.  

“I feel so blessed,” she said. “… I can’t say it’s something I don’t understand, but it’s something I would not have expected. I just feel blessed. I’m amazed at how many people care.”