A CASE FOR LOVE: The Settings
Welcome back to Bonneterre, Louisiana, for the delightful conclusion of the Brides of Bonneterre series!
Of course A Case for Love puts us right back into the fictional city of Bonneterre (pronounced bon-TARE-uh). For a refresher on the origins of this fictional city, read the Settings post from Menu for Romance.
There are a few key locations in and around Bonneterre that see quite a bit of the action in A Case for Love.
The Fishin’ Shack—Jenn’s restaurant in Comeaux, Louisiana, another fictional town, this one much smaller, about fifteen minutes south of Bonneterre. The Fishin’ Shack has been featured in both of the other books. It’s where a bunch of the Guidry cousins gather on Thursday nights for dinner (they started doing this when Jenn opened the restaurant to help her business grow). It features “Family Friendly Karaoke” on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday nights. And, if I ever do get to write Jenn’s story, you’ll learn even more about it!
Arcenault Dance Studio—Just down the street from The Fishin’ Shack in Comeaux, this is a new business, the grand-opening of which Alaine decides to cover for her show. The dance studio is in an old karate studio and was opened by a married couple, Ruth Arcenault and Ian Birtwistle, who also happen to be world champion ballroom dancers.
Maison Bonneterre—This is the name of the townhouse community where both Forbes and Alaine live. Forbes lives in the “upscale” part of the neighborhood while Alaine’s townhouse is in the more affordable section. I don’t believe I ever used the actual name of the development in the books.
- Forbes’s Townhouse (Forbes’s is on the left, Shon’s is on the right):
Alaine’s Townhouse (hers is the light brown one with the bay window, and the kitchen has been modified from this floorplan, as described in Menu for Romance):
Moreaux Mills—In A Case for Love I introduced a new and very important area of Bonneterre. It’s considered by most to be the “wrong side of the tracks”—it’s the residential area built in the early 20th century to house the families of the hundreds of workers for the now-defunct Moreaux Paper Mills. The Mills shut down about twenty or so years ago, but even before then, the area had started changing into more of a mixed-use area with dozens of people operating businesses out of their homes. The inspiration for this type of community came from the Bransford Avenue area that lies between 100 Oaks and Berry Hill in Nashville. And of course, the most important setting in Moreaux Mills is Delacroix Gardens, the florist and nursery center owned by Alaine’s parents.
And just in case you have a hard time figuring out the geography of Bonneterre and how to get around, here’s the hand-drawn map I sketched out just to help myself when writing A Case for Love, because the characters seem to get around town more in this one than in the other two.
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KayeDacus.com 
Forbes’ house made me drool on the keyboard a little bit.
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That’s one of the nice things about storyboarding . . . I’m able to “buy” real estate that I’ll never be able to afford!
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I have only read Menu for Romance so far as part of a blog tour. But I loved it! I didn’t feel like I was totally out of the loop despite not reading the first book. It is so neat to see actual pictures of the town you wrote about! That is one crazy townhouse Forbes has.
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Thanks, Shelly! It’s good to know that the books can be read out of order and not lose anyone!
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Ohh la la…I’d settle for Alaine’s townhouse LOL…as long as there’s a garage for my Mustang I’m satisfied! 😛
xoxo~ Renee
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I think in the books I gave her a one-car garage instead of the two-car garage this townhouse has. But since it’s just her, her little black Mazda RX-8 fits just fine!
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Gorgeous! I was just about to say how jealous I was and how I wanted to do this when I remember I already have, LOL.
(PS—just noticed you added me to your favorite links. Thanks so much!)
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Having these kinds of images on hand is great when writing—as a matter of fact, just last night I was writing a scene for Love Remains in which Bobby is seeing what will become his condo for the first time, and it was nice to be able to use the 3-D rendering I pulled from the condo building’s website a month ago so that I could “walk through” it with him.
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Wow, what a map and such great detail for your story location. Now I know why it comes to life in your writing.
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Well, that and I’ve been “living in” Bonneterre for almost twenty years now. It’s very real to me. I can close my eyes and see the different places in the city that I write about.
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COOL! I love your map. You really do a good job on setting up the background for your stories, i.e. you are good at “world creation.” I really believe that you will have a chance to write Jenn’s story and more in Bonneterre.
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Yeah, I think that will probably be my next proposal after I finish the current series—another Bonneterre series.
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And if not a trilogy, maybe a special “stand-alone” Christmas novel or something to tell Jenn’s story.
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LOVE the map. I really do enjoy it when authors put the maps of their fictional cities in their books too. I’m such a visual person, so it helps me figure out stuff! 🙂
Love seeing the inspiration behind your books!
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Same for me—being a visual person, I’ve always had some kind of conceptual drawing of the layout of Bonneterre lying around. This just happened to be the first time I did it on such a large scale (that was done on my big Post-it easel pad).
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I don’t see many townhouses where I am from, and the fishin’ shack reminds me of an island diner for some reason… at least from the outside, not so much on the inside. Is it easier basing a fictional book on a town that is real rather than not real?
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Now that I’m writing a book set in Nashville, where I’ve lived for fourteen years, I’m finding it much harder to incorporate the setting. Maybe because I’m trying way too hard to “incorporate” the setting. I never felt like I had to do that with the Bonneterre books. But I feel constrained to have to prove I know Nashville by including street names, iconic buildings, and recognizable areas of town so that I don’t get reviewers saying that I obviously don’t know Nashville because it doesn’t “pop” from the page.
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Loved the pics, but I’m with some of the others – I absolutely adore when I can see a map of where the characters are – especially in a fictional “land.” It makes the place so real! How long does it take to get reservations at the “Fishin’ Shack?” Sounds like a restaurant I’d LOVE to go to!
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The Fishin’ Shack doesn’t take reservations. It’s strictly first come, first served!
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I love your descriptions and pictures that inspired you, and appreicate you sharing that insight with readers. The map really makes it easier to picture the details of the story as well as the proximity of everything related to the main characters. I wish all series stories had maps and family trees in the books.
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I wish I could have afforded to have an artist’s rendering of Bonneterre put into the books, but since it’s supposed to be a city of about a quarter of a million residents, we probably wouldn’t have been able to do it justice.
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What great fun!
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Thanks!
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Floorplans should be included in the front of books like family trees are sometimes. It would definitely help. I always have trouble imagining spatial layouts like a floorplan by description alone. I’ll have to come back to this post if I need help when reading A Case for Love 🙂
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I think if I do another Bonneterre series, I’ll ask them if we can do a family tree.
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So, from looking at these pictures I take it that The Fishin’ Shack is a real place. Is it real or did you choose the building, but added the sign to the picture?
By the way, “A Case for Love” is in stock at CBD!
http://www.christianbook.com/3-case-love-kaye-dacus/9781602604568/pd/604568?item_code=WW&netp_id=636740&event=ESRCN&view=details
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I chose the building, wiped out the words “The Pirate House” from the sign and put my own restaurant name on there.
This was the image I had originally chosen for The Fishin’ Shack, but actually, in my mind, it started looking more like a Joe’s Crab Shack on the outside than this two-story building (and that’s actually where the interior picture comes from–a JCS).
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I love that you work so hard to tell a good story, and that you share your process. I don’t know whether to be frightened or inspired! 🙂
Really, it helps to “see” how a successful author works behind the scenes and puts it all together. Bonneterre felt real to me from SIG.
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This was so fun! Having read both books, it was neat to see how closely I imagined these places in my mind.
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