SCARSDALE - He was a lawyer working for and with publishers, newspapers and magazines. She was a teacher at Rye Country Day School. Their lives orbited books, but books were never their lives.

Act two.

Mark Fowler and his wife, Jessica Kaplan, both 67, decided a year ago to leave the careers they knew behind to open Bronx River Books on Spencer Place in Scarsdale. The store's September opening marked both a return of book selling in the village and the first independent bookstore debut in Westchester since Chappaqua's Scattered Books in 2015.

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"We both had longstanding relationships to books in a different way," Fowler said. "But until two months ago we never sold anything to anybody."

Deciding to link their love of books with a desire to wind their existing careers down, the couple got serious about opening a bookstore, taking online courses on how to be a bookseller and visiting 62 independent bookstores between Boston, their home in White Plains and Washington, D.C. That process revealed it was going to take more than a love of books and reading to convert their interest into something tangible.

"Starting any small business involves a lot of moving parts that neither of us had any particular experience with," Fowler said.

Their self-education gave Fowler and Kaplan ideas about what the steps were toward opening their business. They learned where they needed to be in the process when, Fowler said. They learned about suppliers, how to utilize square footage, where go to get shelves for the store and which shelves were best.

They also consulted with the White Plains-based American Booksellers Association, a more than century old nonprofit trade organization dedicated to independent bookstores. When Fowler and Kaplan felt ready, the association's CEO, Oren Teicher, told the couple Scarsdale commercial landlord Rush Wilson was looking for new business to fill the village's flagging downtown.

"And here we are," Kaplan said. "(People) would walk in and say 'Thank you for being here.' They were so nice."

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'We engage with everybody'

The last bookstore in the Scarsdale downtown was Reading, Writing and Wrapping on East Parkway, which closed eight years ago. In bringing book selling back to the village, Kaplan and Fowler said the social component has been key, amounting to a form of branding in which he and Kaplan — and their dog, Virginia — are an integral part of the browsing and buying experience.

"People who come to a bookstore are generally pretty happy," Fowler said. "We engage with everyone who walks in the door. We have a few minutes of conversation with everybody."

Teicher said there has been a upswing in the frequency and success of independent bookstores over the last few years. He chalked it up to three factors: The public's shift toward valuing and patronizing local, independently owned businesses in general; the ability of such businesses to use technology and social media to better serve and connect with customers; and book publishers' realizing the power of browsing sales and pricing their books favorably for the independents.

There's one other thing, Teicher said, that may be basic, but can't be ignored when plotting an independent's success.

"When you walk into Mark and Jessica's store, it's obvious they love books," he said.

Another early success for the store has been hosting events, such as the Scarsdale Salon, a writers group that typically meets at the Scarsdale library, which is currently under renovation. Bronx River Books has also hosted two story hours and a poetry reading.

Although they don't expect to compete with Amazon — and don't want to compete with other independents in the area — the couple knows what they're up against.

"We know it's going to take a few years, and we know we're not going get rich doing it," Kaplan said. "We're excited about it. How do we feel about doing something no one else is really doing? That's who we are anyway."

If you go

What: Bronx River Books

When: Open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday to Wednesday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday

Where: 37 Spencer Place, Scarsdale