These last few months have been difficult. If we’re lucky, we’re stuck at home, grateful not to be sick and remembering better days when we could enjoy the best time of the year doing exactly as we pleased without giving any more thought to the matter beyond Where would I like to go today? It seems like such a long time ago when, back in the fall, my husband Bill and I enjoyed just such a day, taking a road trip to Briarcliff Manor and its neighboring town of Sleepy Hollow.
Having set the Rabourn Theater Series in Briarcliff Manor, and making references to Sleepy Hollow in An Amorous Dance [The Rabourn Theater Series #2], I’d been wanting to visit both towns for as long as I could remember. Though the internet makes it relatively simple to research an unfamiliar place, there is nothing like experiencing it firsthand. I wanted to know if I’d gotten the details right, and see the little world I had imagined for so long come to life before my eyes. Since the second edition of A Passionate Play [The Rabourn Theater Series # 1] just released and we’re all dying to take a road trip, what better time to share our adventure with you!
The fictitious, majestic Rabourn Theater is located on Pleasantville Road. In my imagination, it is positioned beside St. Theresa’s church, a few doors down from the local restaurants I reference in my stories, The Moonbean Cafe (which I refer to as the “Moonbeam Cafe”) and The Patio. Sultry & Sensational, the fictitious nightclub which is transformed into an upscale bar and restaurant later in the Rabourn Theater Series, is typically described as being “up the road” from Rabourn Theater, though in actuality the section of the street designated for retail isn’t especially long. Though I was a little disappointed to realize that Pleasantville Road was not exactly as I’d pictured it, I was so excited to actually be there I didn’t really care. I’d just walked inside my imagination. It doesn’t get much more exciting than that!
Every good contemporary fiction series needs a coffee shop, right? It’s a perfect setting for characters to accidentally bump into one another, reflect upon what’s happening throughout the course of the story or even get into a brawl. Not realizing how small the town of Briarcliff Manor was when I first began writing the Rabourn Theater Series, I was surprised to learn that the coffee shop I’d stumbled upon in my research, The Moonbean Cafe, was also on Pleasantville Road, the same place I planned on putting the theater. In the end it worked well for me, as I’ve often had the characters “walk to the Moonbeam Cafe” for a cup of coffee, and it makes perfect sense that they’d be bumping into one another there, seeing as how it’s only a few doors down from where the theater is supposed to be.
When Bill suggested we actually step in and get a cup of coffee I eagerly accepted his invitation. I’d pictured the inside of the cafe so many times I already knew what it looked like – scratch that, I didn’t have a clue! Not a big deal, considering I did change the name of the cafe in my stories and the logistics of how it is laid out are rather insignificant. But I was surprised to discover that the counter was not at all where I’d imagined it and the place is quite small – if a handful of Rabourn Theater’s couples decided to go get a cup of coffee together, there probably wouldn’t be enough seats for all of them!
A few doors down from the Moonbean Cafe, The Patio is a restaurant I’ve also made use of in a number of Rabourn Theater stories. It’s actually closer to where I envisioned Rabourn Theater to be than the Moonbean Cafe is and definitely within easy walking distance. Though I was striving to convey heroine Hannah Rabourn’s well-to-do upbringing and need for control when she and and her cousin Alicia drive from the theater to The Patio in An Amorous Dance, I might have had them walk if I had it to do over.
Bill and I found St. Theresa’s Church completely by accident – it’s basically around the corner from other points of reference I use in the series. In A Passionate Play, villain Sebastian Nathanson makes his way through the parking lot behind the church and hops the fence to enter the alleyway behind Rabourn Theater. I’m so glad we got to see the church, which gave me a great idea of where Rabourn Theater would actually be, if things were as I described them in my stories.
I had a bit of trouble remembering the name of the restaurant I’d taken my inspiration from when setting the scene for Hannah and stage director Evan Masters’ long ago first date, which is not only mentioned but essentially recreated by Evan in An Amorous Dance. I didn’t name the restaurant in the book but I did remember from my research that it does NOT provide a viewing of the famous Ichabod Crane Bridge, which no longer exists today, but rather the Tapanzee. Passing Bridge View Tavern with Bill, I was excited to recall that yes this was indeed the restaurant that inspired the setting for my scene and was surprised to see a line of people waiting to get inside that went down the block. Though, it makes perfect sense to me that important people like Evan Masters and Hannah Rabourn would have little trouble scoring reservations. 😉
I did a bit of additional research and learned that the Pocantico River, which eventually empties into the Hudson River, takes quite an extensive course before doing so, including becoming the Pocantico Lake, a place we did get to see and snap a couple of pictures of just before the sun set.
I’m not a writer who enjoys doing research. I’d much rather skip to the “good stuff,” jump right in and write the story and all the fun that comes with it. But I enjoyed getting to know the town of Briarcliff Manor as I wrote the Rabourn Theater Series and I loved getting to see it for myself! It’s exciting, making a setting your own and thrilling taking a long weekend to set inside your own creative mind.
The 2nd edition of A PASSIONATE PLAY is now available in paperback!
On the heels of a major performance, theater actress Alicia Coleman is attacked in an alleyway. She is struck over the head with a pistol and the blow causes her to lose her memory. Injured and afraid, Alicia struggles to remember the details of her life. The only person who appears to know who she is, is the man she fears may also be her attacker.
In the midst of several attempts to escape, Alicia comes to know the man whose home she awoke in and realizes the two of them share a complicated past. Though Nick refuses to tell her much beyond her first name, a series of dreams in which he and she are sharing a lot more than the second story of a secluded mansion cause Alicia to suspect the most outrageous of possibilities, that the man holding her prisoner may actually be her lover. Proving her theory true may be her only chance of keeping her attacker from coming after her a second time.
AMAZON – https://www.amazon.com/Passionate-Play-Rabourn-Theater/dp/B087L4MKV5
EXCERPT – http://jessicalauryn.com/a-passionate-play/
DANGEROUS PROPOSAL is on SALE at Amazon for 99 Cents!
For ten agonizing years, Alec Westwood has been keeping a secret from the world. At nineteen, he nearly committed the most horrific of crimes—murder in cold blood—and narrowly escaped the assignment with his life. When a stunning young woman crosses his path wearing the insignia for the organization that recruited him, he vows not to let fate get a second chance. But when the enchantress gives him a kiss that leaves him spellbound, Alec realizes the power she holds is greater than all his strength and fortitude combined.
On the run from her psychotic fiancé, Lena Benson is determined to forge a new life, even if it means befriending a witch, and practicing the craft of the devil. But when her new friend Jack tells her to stay away from Alec Westwood, the man she believes her fiancé hired to track her down, and the handsome stranger she kissed in a tavern, Lena decides to take matters into her own hands. Alec may be charming, but she’s calling the shots this time, even if it means resisting the man responsible for giving her the most intimate kiss of her life, a man whose eyes and touch rob her, literally, of sense.
99 CENTS at AMAZON – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085YG3PR4
Thank you for this wonderful travelogue. I’ve been doing this every time I came back East for the Put Your Heart in a Book conference to keep my memories of NY and NJ that show up in my stories fresh. Congrats on the re-release. Good luck with sales. BTW, your new covers are sooooo emotionally engaging.
Thanks so much, Anna! Hopefully we’ll all be able to do some travelling and exploring again soon!!