I loathe the snow and cold too, and live just south of you in Iowa. My guilty pleasure is Janet Evanovich. She makes me snort every single time. As a librarian, I have far too many favorites, which isn't always a good thing. Definitely too many to mention.
I absolutely think it's empowering. I put myself in the "what would I do?" situation and usually come pretty close as I've been reading fiction with strong heroine characters for a long time. I think that knowledge would either give me the strength to do the right thing OR get me killed really quickly if ever faced with a harrowing situation.
What a nice message. I belong to a listserv that is heavy with authors and I have never NOT received a reply back which is always nice as a reader. Many of them are friends of mine on FB and I enjoy interacting with them in that forum as well. Congrats on being such a stand up author and realizing that those people sending you emails are the same ones spending their money on your books. A nice lesson for those authors that "just don't have the time."
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