New York with Hayley Dunlop
New York with Hayley Dunlop
While the majority of I’m Dreaming of a New York Christmas takes place in New York, we first meet our main character – a shy speechwriter called Flora – in Bath, England. She’s recently moved there from London after a brutal break up with her fiancé a few months previously.
Bath Abbey
Book map of I’m Dreaming of a New York Christmas
While Flora is beginning to settle into the English World Heritage city, she’s yet to fully find her footing, and is looking forward to the quietest solo Christmas imaginable in her cosy flat so she can gear up for a fresh start in the new year. But then her mum and sister turn up out of the blue and whisk her off to New York. At first, Flora is shellshocked by the unexpected trip. But as the city that never sleeps begins to work its magic on her, the new year that Flora’s been visualising for herself suddenly begins to look very different…
Snow in New York (c) Hayley Dunlop
Book map of I’m Dreaming of a New York Christmas
Writing a rom-com set in New York was such a joyful and vivid experience. To me, New York feels like less of a location, and more of an additional character; the energy of the city is so electric, and it’s one of those rare places that feels even more like the version of it you’ve built in your mind’s eye when you step foot in it for real. I really wanted that to come across in the story, and seeing NYC through Flora’s perspective when she arrives there unexpectedly – and dare I say reluctantly – was such a fun way to bring the city’s charming yet uncompromising personality to life.
Christmas tree in hotel , New York (c) Hayley Dunlop
Book map of I’m Dreaming of a New York Christmas
Flora has had a terrible year, and her well-meaning but chaotic family want to do whatever they can to cheer her up. They know that Flora has always wanted to visit New York, so they whisk her off there in the run-up to Christmas as a surprise. Flora is sceptical about the trip from the outset, but as soon as the lights of Manhattan envelop her, something inside her starts to shift – as if the city is embracing her, rather than overwhelming her. And then she meets Ethan in a Greenwich Village coffee shop, who just so happens to be one of her favourite New Yorker cartoonists…
Book map of I’m Dreaming of a New York Christmas
I first visited New York in 2003 with my parents and my brother when I was shiny-faced twenty-one-year-old. It was one of those formative family trips where the strongest memories weren’t created by going up the Empire State Building or seeing the Statue of Liberty up close (although we did both), but the countless moments of hilarity that we still laugh about all these years later.
Book map of I’m Dreaming of a New York Christmas
Like the time my dad couldn’t figure out how to order an orange soda, so asked for ‘a carbonated drink, flavoured with orange’. And the time we accidentally ended up in a fancy-pants New York steakhouse. The steaks were well beyond our price range, but we were too embarrassed to leave, so we all ordered the cheapest ‘broiler chickens’ even though we had no idea what they were. Then, after we paid the bill, the maître d’ accused us of trying to steal his pen. To correct the record once and for all: IT WAS OUR PEN.
Book map of I’m Dreaming of a New York Christmas
For a few nights on this trip, we stayed at the wonderful Washington Square Hotel in Greenwich Village, and this is the hotel that inspired the fictional Earle Inn in I’m Dreaming of a New York Christmas. The Washington Square Hotel used to be called Hotel Earle, and has been a hotel since 1902. Twenty years after that memorable 2003 family trip, my brother and I returned to New York and stayed in the same hotel, because we’re sentimental like that.
Book map of I’m Dreaming of a New York Christmas
Nothing at all about it had changed – it’s been owned and managed by the same family since the 1970s – and I can’t imagine it ever will. It’s absolutely my favourite hotel in the world, and I hope to return there one day while proudly clutching a copy of my book. (Oh Hayley I really hope you do!)
BookTrail Boarding Pass: I’m Dreaming of a New York Christmas
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