Karen Hall, an environmental engineer and writer, lives in the Black Hills outside Rapid City, SD, with her husband Jeff Nelsen and their two cats, Rocky and Junior. Though she earned a Bachelor's Degree at the University of Minnesota, she confirmed Garrison Keillor's notions about English majors; she spent time as an editor, lifeguard, graphics designer, marketing executive, bank teller, secretary and cherry picker (really—Yakima Valley, Washington). None of them suited her well, so she went back to school for degrees in chemistry and chemical engineering, and spent nearly nine years working in Minnesota's oil industry. She left to start her own environmental consulting business—and to devote more time to writing. Her first novel, Unreasonable Risk, published in 2006, is a thriller about sabotage in an oil refinery. Ms. Hall has also published several short stories and travel pieces. She has recently finished the second in her environmental series, Through Dark Spaces, A Hannah Morrison Mystery, set in the hard rock gold mining industry of the Black Hills. Watch for it here soon! Karen is currently finishing a novel about infertility.