by Amy Plum
DEYROLLE (MAP #10)
The taxidermy shop on rue du Bac that Kate used to visit with her mother. She and Charlotte pass it on their way to the Seine.
Amy says: This is my favorite taxidermy shop. (Yes, I have a favorite. There are five I know of in Paris, and Deyrolle is one that guarantees “kind” practices.) It’s a veritable zoo of animals. When I brought a group of young adult writers there, they went nuts and wanted to buy out the whole place. I’m not sure what the link is between YA authors and taxidermy, but one definitely exists!
Address: 46 rue du Bac, 75007 Paris
DOLCEAQUA
The medieval town in Italy where Kate, Vincent, Geneviève, and Charlotte spent the day in Until I Die.
Amy says: When I first lived in Paris, I took a similar day trip from the south of France just over the border of Italy with a boyfriend. Years later, when I was writing Until I Die, I planned our family vacation for the Côte d’Azur so I could research Kate and Vincent’s trip to the south.
While there, I drove over the Italian border and spent the afternoon in Dolceaqua. I wandered around the beautiful medieval village, took pictures, and sat on a restaurant terrace in the town square eating the most enormous pizza I’d ever laid eyes on. A truly magical, romantic town, and the perfect place for Vincent to have taken Kate.
DÔME CAFÉ (MAP #11)
This is where Kate got a crepe before following Vincent and Jules into the Métro, when Jules sacrificed himself in front of a train.
Amy says: This is an example of a location I chose from when I lived in Paris in the 1990s that no longer exists. There is still a café in that spot, but it’s now called La Favorite and does not have an outdoor crepe stand. However, the waiters are just as rude as they were twenty years ago. It’s comforting to know that some things never change.
Address: 6 rue de Rivoli, 75004 Paris
ÉGLISE SAINT-OUEN LE VIEUX (MAP #12)
Kate began her search here for the guérisseur mentioned in Immortal Love who she hoped could heal Vincent of his urge to die.
Amy says: When I came up with the idea for the tenth-century illuminated manuscript, L’amur immortel (Immortal Love), I needed to find a place near Paris that was old enough to have existed at the time that the bardia Goderic sought the guérisseur to heal him. I found the royal villa of King Dagobert in Saint-Ouen, a northern suburb of Paris, where a bishop had died in 686 CE. Pilgrims came regularly to visit. So I reasoned that the guérisseur could have had something to do with that ancient site, and thought his family could have sold relics to the pilgrims.
I saw that a twelfth-century church now stood on the site of the villa and decided to have Kate start there and work her way to Bran’s shop in the nearby flea market. So I wrote that into the book, without having seen the place (there were no photos on the internet), and left a space in the manuscript so that I could describe it after I had a chance to go to Paris and visit it.
It was when I actually got to the site of the church that I realized how dangerous the neighborhood was and decided to work that into the story so that none of my lovely readers would venture there without knowing what they were getting into!
Address: 4 rue du Planty, 93400 Saint-Ouen
ÉGLISE SAINT-PAUL (MAP #13)
Kate and Vincent sat in front of this church while Kate told him about the jousts that used to take place in this spot.
Amy says: When I lived at 79 rue Saint-Antoine, the building attached to one side of the church, my friends and I used the steps as a front porch. We would sit there and eat off my flea-market plates, sip wine out of my mother’s vintage crystal, and revel in the magical city around us.
It was during a visit to the Musée Carnavalet (the museum of the history of Paris) that I read about the jousts that were held on the rue Saint-Antoine. Afterward I (like Kate) would sit on the steps of the church and imagine myself as a spectator at the knights’ games in medieval Paris.
Address: 7 Passage Saint-Paul, 75004 Paris
EIFFEL TOWER (ICON ON MAP)
Where Vincent took Kate in the rowboat for her birthday surprise.
Amy says: The Eiffel Tower. Symbol of Paris. Just seeing its outline affects people in a profound way. It’s the ultimate spindle—spinner of dreams.
Of course, when you have to stand in line for two hours in the rain to get just to the first level while pickpockets comb the crowd and vendors harass you to buy three-inch cheap metal monuments, it’s not quite as romantic. So I needed to show it from a distance, at that enchanted moment where the whole thing starts sparkling with lights. I could have put Vincent and Kate on a bridge. The Pont Alexandre III, for example.
But I once stood under the Eiffel Tower during the Bastille Day fireworks, in the middle of a rough crowd throwing firecrackers at one another, and thought, “I wish I had a rowboat. I would just bob in the middle of the Seine and watch the show, and then row myself to shore when it was over.” I never forgot that dream. And when I had the chance to, I let Vincent make it happen.
Address: Do you really need one? 75007 Paris
GREAT JONES CAFÉ
Restaurant in New York where Kate took Vincent for breakfast the morning after his re-embodiment.
Amy says: This was one of my favorite Manhattan brunch spots when I lived there in the 1990s. It’s located in the Noho neighborhood and was a short walk from my first apartment. I can still taste the jalapeño corn bread with honey drizzled on top and Cajun scrambled eggs—spicy enough to wake you up after a night out on the town!
Address: 54 Great Jones Street, New York, NY 10012
THE GUÉRISSEURS’ ARCHIVES (MAP #14)
Kate was sent into the archives of Bran’s guérisseur family to retrieve books that might contain information on re-embodiment. Bran also buried his mother here, deep beneath the Paris streets in a cave dug off a tunnel running from the old Roman baths at the Cluny Museum.
Amy says: This was the most fun I had with a location, because it is so elaborate and 100 percent made up. Most locations in the series are at least anchored in reality and based on a true, existing place. But the guérisseurs’ archives is complete fantasy, and I got to let my imagination run wild with it. I can now see this place so well that I’m almost convinced it exists, and that Bran gave the Muse special permission to give me a peek.
Address: Located in a cave beneath the Roman baths in the Latin Quarter, underneath the Cluny Museum. (Roman baths shown in photo.)
ÎLE SAINT-LOUIS (MAP #15)
The island in the Seine where Vincent took Kate to let her decide if she wanted to take the risk of being with a revenant.
Amy says: For a few months I lived in a teeny-tiny apartment just five minutes’ walk from the Île Saint-Louis. I used to stroll down to the river, across the bridge, and into the park on the eastern tip. I took the old stone steps down to the quay and sat and read books as I listened to the water and watched the boats float by. During the summer it was packed with sunbathers, but if it wasn’t peak sun-worship time, I was pretty much on my own. I brought a date there once, and we kissed and held hands while watching the waves ripple in the sun. It was an easy choice when I needed a quiet, romantic place for Kate and Vincent to talk.
JUDAS (MAP #16)
The numa-owned bar near Place Denfert where Georgia was invited to a party the night of the Catacombs battle.
Amy says: This is another totally made-up place—it doesn’t exist in Paris. But I had a good time coming up with its name!
However, the fact that numa territory ended up being near the Place Denfert-Rochereau was an interesting coincidence. I initially chose the location because I needed a neighborhood near the Catacombs. I put both Judas in Die for Me and Lucien’s restaurant in Until I Die (where Ambrose gets stabbed) close by.
It wasn’t until I studied the neighborhood history that I discovered that, before being named for a nineteenth-century general, the square had been called “Place d’Enfer” or “Hell’s Square.” What a perfect name for
the site of the numa stronghold!
Address withheld. The photo is just a random creepy Paris door. You don’t want to go looking for this place. Trust me.
JULES’S PAINTING STUDIO (MAP #17)
This was Jules’s haven, on the courtyard of the Église Saint-Paul in the Marais. It was the place he escaped to when he needed to be alone and work. It appears in several scenes, including just before Jules’s death in the Métro, and when he and Kate arrived to find a numa searching through his papers.
Amy says: This was my apartment from 1995 to 1997. It was THE BEST APARTMENT EVER. Its two rooms were tiny, but it looked across a courtyard onto the side of the church. I saw flickering candles through the church windows, kept time by the bells, and on Sunday mornings was awoken by the singing of the choir. I painted an Edward Gorey ballerina on one wall. Before I called a plumber to block it, mice came up through a hole under the kitchen sink and acted like my place was theirs. I didn’t want to kill them; they had been living there a lot longer than I! There was an ancient basement with access to the Paris sewers. The bathtub was half-size, just big enough to sit in if you bent your legs, but it was so “old Paris” that I didn’t care. I once had a party there with thirty-five people (I had to turn my bed on its side, up against one wall, for us to fit), during which a famous countertenor gave an impromptu concert. It was the most amazing place, and when I had to find a studio for Jules, there was really no other choice.
Address: 97 rue Saint-Antoine, 75004 Paris
THE MERCIERS’ APARTMENT (MAP #18)
The apartment owned by Kate’s grandparents, where she and Georgia moved after their parents died.
Amy says: I wanted Mamie and Papy’s apartment to overlook a small park I had found off rue du Bac. That was important because the revenants had to have somewhere inconspicuous from which to watch Kate’s house. But there weren’t any buildings on the park that matched the one in my mind. So I stole a building from a few blocks away, put it at 4 rue de Commaille, and used it to write my descriptions.
In my mind, Papy and Mamie’s apartment was on the third floor. The entire top floor of the building was converted into a restoration workshop for Mamie, and its roof replaced with glass for good lighting. There was an elevator for two people and a spiral marble staircase. The front door had a digicode with four numbers and two letters, and it was followed by a second door with an intercom to buzz people into the stairwell. If you want to picture it in detail, I have included Kate’s description in the Deleted Scenes!
Address: Around 4 rue de Commaille, 75007, Paris
LA MAISON (MAP #19)
The nickname for Jean-Baptiste’s mansion, which was officially called Hôtel Grimod de la Reynière. Jean-Baptiste lived there with his “family” of revenants.
Amy says: I got the name for Jean-Baptiste and his mansion while searching for actual hôtels particuliers I could use for my descriptions. I found one called the Hôtel Grimod de la Reynière, which had stood in the eighth arrondissement. Established in 1775, it was torn down in 1932 in order to build the American embassy.
I borrowed the name and set it near Kate’s house. I actually combed the nearby streets to find a mansion in that neighborhood, but when I couldn’t find one, I used the building that houses the Maillol Museum, which was in the perfect spot. In my mind I pushed it back off the street into a garden and put a big wall and blinded gate in front of it. Some of the interior is based on the Jacquemart-André Museum—particularly the double spiral staircase in the front hall.
Address: 59-61 rue de Grenelle, 75007 Paris
LA PALETTE (MAP #20)
The café where Kate saw Vincent with Geneviève in Die for Me. In Until I Die, the sisters ran into Arthur there.
Amy says: When I lived on rue Champollion, I spent a lot of time wandering the fifth and sixth arrondissements. One of my favorite streets was rue de Seine, since it was lined with all sorts of art and antique galleries. I actually bought my first real works of art there when I was twenty-five: two signed and numbered etchings of Figbash by Edward Gorey. Rue de Seine was also the address of many famous people, including D’Artagnan (the musketeer), Charles Baudelaire, George Sand, and Marcello Mastroianni. The neighborhood was so steeped in fascinating history, I just couldn’t stay away.
You can’t wander the rue de Seine without stumbling into La Palette. Walking down the tiny, narrow street, you suddenly find a large, open café terrace packed with art dealers, artists, students, and tourists. Its name refers to an artist’s palette. This harks back to its beginnings: It was a hangout for art students at the nearby Beaux-Arts school. Some of its early patrons were Cézanne, Picasso, and Braque. And as a young American in Paris, it was a thrill to know that I was sitting where so many great artists had, eating the delicious tarte tatin, and sipping huge cups of steaming café crème.
Address: 43 rue de Seine, 75006 Paris
LANGEAIS CASTLE (LE CHTEAU DE LANGEAIS)
The medieval castle in the Loire Valley where Violette and Arthur lived. Violette took Vincent’s body there to burn it.
Amy says: I used this location because I knew it very well: I worked at the castle as a tour guide in the summer of 2006! Although you don’t see the inside of the castle in the books, I could probably still take you on a room-by-room tour and give you the history behind each object.
The castle is famous for being the location of Anne of Brittany’s wedding to Charles V, which is where I got the inspiration to make Violette one of Anne’s ladies-in-waiting. I already knew Anne’s history from my research at the castle, and knew that she not only surrounded herself with noble ladies, as was the custom, but she also took a group of young noble girls under her wing. Several factions wanted to rule Brittany; therefore Anne, as heir, was a much-desired match. She actually had to travel in secret to the Château de Langeais to marry Charles, because she feared a kidnapping attempt by her other suitors. Which leads us straight to Violette’s backstory!
I made Violette and Charles the guardians of the castle, because in actual fact there is a family hired by the castle to live there year-round and keep an eye out for intruders, fire, or any other problem you might come across in a medieval castle in the middle of nowhere. This lucky family gets free rent in an enormous apartment on the top floor.
Address: Place Pierre de Brosse, 37130 Langeais
LE CORBEAU (MAP #21)
The relic shop run by Bran and his mother.
Amy says: This is another fictional location, set in the very real flea market area in Saint-Ouen. (It’s referred to as both the Puces de Clignancourt and the Puces de Saint-Ouen.) The flea market itself is the largest in the world and spans many streets: Some sellers have actual shops—like Le Corbeau—while others use outdoor stalls and tables.
I decided to put Le Corbeau right in the middle of the Puces, because there are so many strange little shops there that locals wouldn’t be alarmed by the presence of a relic shop run by healers. And the town of Saint-Ouen has been a place of pilgrimage (thus a place people would buy relics) since medieval times. Therefore, if set here, the business Bran’s family used to hide their supernatural activities behind could have reasonably existed for over a millennia—a time frame I needed for the mythology to work.
As for the name, corbeau means “raven” in French. Bran means raven in Breton—a language spoken in Brittany, where his family was based. Kate thought he looked a bit like a raven. And, if you’ve read my After the End series, you will know I have a particular affinity for that species of bird.
Address: Somewhere in the vicinity of the Saint-Ouen flea market, to the north of Paris
LE DIVAN DU MONDE (MAP #22)
This was where Georgia’s boyfriend, Sebastien, held a concert. Afterward, numa attacked their group in an alleyway behind the music hall.
Amy says: I was living in the Loire Valley when I wrote this, and actually didn’t know of a club that would work for this scene. So I searched the internet for a live music venue that wasn’t
too big and had a kind of indie feel to it. The leopard-skin curtains over the old-fashioned stage won me over.
Address: 75 rue des Martyrs, 75018 Paris
LE MARCHÉ DES ENFANTS ROUGES (MAP #23)
The covered market where Kate and Violette went to lunch for the first time.
Amy says: This is the oldest market in Paris, which is why I wanted to send five-hundred-year-old Violette there. Four hundred years before, it was the site of an orphanage whose benefactress insisted that the children be dressed in red. This made them instantly recognizable in the community.
I always thought that “The Market of the Red Children” sounded Stephen King–style creepy, and when I knew that Kate and Violette needed to get to know each other, I decided to send them there. The restaurant they ate at is called L’Estaminet des Enfants Rouges and is one of my favorite places for brunch. And the market itself is a visual and odorous delight! Warning: It’s very crowded on weekends, but several other restaurants have now opened up within the market, so between them, you should find a place to sit and have a delicious meal.
Address: 39 rue de Bretagne, 75003 Paris
LES DEUX MAGOTS (MAP #24)
Where Vincent took Kate for hot chocolate. They were here when they got the call about Charles dying in the boat accident.
Amy says: In Die for Me, I said that the best hot chocolate in Paris was at Les Deux Magots. I lied. It’s at Angelina. And I’m not sorry for lying. Because the line to get into Angelina is already so long, I was afraid that if I spread the word, I would be waiting even longer for one of their much-desired tables.
