Cottagecore Fun!

Irish cottage featured in "The Quiet Man"

I learned a new term the other day: “Cottagecore.”

Before you ask, “Hey, are you living under a rock?” I will admit, “Yes I am, and proud of it!”

For the uninitiated, aka, folks who are completely out of it like me, “cottagecore” is a trend that came along via the internet focusing on a cozy, rural style. Cottages and farmhouses are prominent features of this mostly idealized way of living.

Victorian houses and English manor houses, I understand, are associated with cottagecore too. The tiny house trend, I’m sure, is part of cottagecore as well—especially if it’s out in the country.

The thing is, I realized I have been a cottagecore fancier all my life. When I was a little kid in Central Minnesota, my dad used to take my siblings and I to a park on the banks of the Mississippi River. There, in the heart of the beautifully tended flowerbeds, was a tiny old cabin.

Every visit to the park, I would peer through the windows, hoping to find something mysterious, or at least interesting inside. There were tatty shades over the glass, but through a torn portion I could make out an ancient armchair and dust everywhere. My sister and I would pretend a witch lived in there. Or a troll. Whatever might be lurking inside, we never lingered around the cabin for long.

Readers of my “Little Farm” memoirs will know that I was a passionate reader of the “Little House” series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. My imagination was gripped by the Ingalls family log cabin in Wisconsin, their sod house in Minnesota, and the spare claim shanty on the Dakota prairie, made cozy by Ma’s little china figurine and handmade quilts.

Since most of the “Little House” books were written in the 1940s and 50s, “cottagecore” has actually been around a long time! Classic books like Jane Austen’s novels come to mind; likewise, Louisa May Alcott’s. I’ve pretty much concluded any story (book, film, etc.) featuring a cottage garden brimming with deep pink foxglove and sky blue larkspur counts as cottagecore—with extra points if the garden is next to a cottage or manor house with an Aga range in the kitchen.

On the cover of It Only Takes Once

When I created my Village of Ballydara series, novels and stories set in the countryside of County Galway, Ireland, I was in cottagecore territory and didn’t even know it. Here are some of the Irish cottages on my book covers:

On my Mother Love print cover

On The Galway Girls book cover

My new Fairy Cottage of Ballydara mini-series is all about cottagecore too...a cozy little store in The Little Irish Gift Shop, a Victorian mansion in Becoming Emma, and my upcoming book, Home to Ballydara, is set in, yep, the fairy cottage!

Naturally, I’m a big fan of reading cottagecore-related books too. Last week, I featured a memoir about a guy making a life in his hand-built log cabin in the Alaskan wilderness—a terrific yarn!

 However, I give my highest recommendation to my favorite author: Jenny Colgan. When it comes to cottagecore, she has it all! Her charming novels include a cottage in the Cornwall, England countryside, with honeybees buzzing around the garden, a Scottish farmhouse with a border collie snoozing next to the Aga, and cozy small-town cafés with ancient, creaky stoves in the kitchens. 

My favorite book of Jenny Colgan's is The Bookshop on the Shore, set in a manor house in the Highlands of Scotland, on the shore of Loch Ness! The story brims with cottagecore, complete with an Aga, a drafty attic and a massive library of old books. There’s also a wee bookmobile that trundles around the countryside, packed with old books and new… I hope you’ll check it out!