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Like many young book lovers who identified with Belle, Courtney Wright dreamed of the floor-to-ceiling library, replete with rolling ladder, depicted in the 1991 Disney movie “Beauty and the Beast.”

“I’ve always been that little girl reading, and it’s always been a dream to have a bookshop,” said Wright, a Virginia Beach resident.

After eight years of teaching second grade in Virginia Beach City Public Schools, Wright decided to take a step back from her career. The mother of Colin, 9, and Cora, 4, turned to what she knew and loved the most: escaping into a good romance novel.

In July, Wright launched a mobile romance bookshop, Flourish Books.

The business operates from her 1996 Daihatsu Hijet, a right-hand drive Japanese import. She had it

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