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There's a certain type of character that you can't help but come in contact with growing up and living in Brooklyn and Long Island. A certain mixture of moxie, heart, and a wise guy sense of humor.

New England is the home of all that is good and noble with all her sternness and uncompromising opinions.

People seem to need a likable protagonist more than ever.

I'm a sucker for the big, gruff, distant, emotionally closed-off hero who sloooowly warms up to the feisty, awesome, sweet heroine.

I don't worry about whether a character is likable, as long as the character is believable.

An absolutely different and distinctive character.

I can inhabit any character in a way that is difficult to do successfully in a contemporary novel.

There are good characters and bad characters.

This character feels so much like my brother. He has two children. He has a wife. He works with me. He chooses to stay in New Hampshire because he wants his kids to grow up in the school they started with. He doesn't want them to lose friends. He is his family's hero.

I love to start characters in a place where you think you know them. We can make all kinds of assumptions about them and think they have no redeeming qualities, but like everyone, they're complex.