Coming Soon: The Debt by Karina Halle!!

THE DEBT

By Karina Halle

Publisher: Metal Blonde Books

Publication Date: AUGUST 29, 2016

Her life changed in an instant.

And he's the only one who could have prevented it.

Jessica Charles shouldn't have even been in London when the unthinkable happened.

She should have been back at home in Edinburgh, perhaps hanging with her boyfriend, preparing the baby shower for her sister, or teaching her yoga classes. She should have been going on in her normal, dependable life as always.

But on that fateful day in August, when a mentally-ill ex-soldier opened fire in public, Jessica's world changed forever.

Now single and crippled from the gunshot wounds, Jessica finds herself scared and alone, losing faith in herself and humanity with each agonizing moment that passes.

That is until a stranger enters her life. A stranger who makes her live again.

Keir McGregor has always been the strong, silent type. Throw in tall, dark, and handsome and you've got pretty much the perfect Scotsman.

Except Keir is anything but perfect. He's got a past he's running away from and a guilty conscience he can't seem to shed. But the more time he spends with Jessica, the more he falls in love with her.

And the more his secret threatens to tear them apart.

He may have been a stranger to her.

But she’s never been a stranger to him.

GOODREADS: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29096980-the-debt?ac=1&from_search=true

ABOUT KARINA HALLE

Karina Halle is a former travel writer and music journalist and The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today Bestselling author of The Pact, Racing the Sun, Sins & Needles and over 25 other wild and romantic reads. She lives on an island off the coast of British Columbia with her husband and her rescue pup, where she drinks a lot of wine, hikes a lot of trails and devours a lot of books.

Halle is represented by the Waxman Leavell Agency and is both self-published and published by Simon & Schuster and Hachette in North America and in the UK.

Hit her up on Instagram at @authorHalle, on Twitter at @MetalBlonde and on Facebook. You can also visit www.authorkarinahalle.com and sign up for the newsletter for news, excerpts, previews, private book signing sales and more.

LINKS:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Karina-Halle/140649372629593

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MetalBlonde

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4785031.Karina_Halle?from_search=true

AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE: http://www.amazon.com/Karina-Halle/e/B0050KE63C/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1407546895&sr=8-2-ent

Thoughts on the death of UCLA's Professor Klug. Rest in Peace. #UCLA #WearOrange

In case you are living under a rock, or paying attention to the farce that has become our presidential race, you know that there was yet another shooting on a college campus. 

At UCLA. 

At a school I attended. 

In case you need to refresh and update on the incident, you can read about it here: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-mainak-sarkar-ucla-20160602-snap-story.html

I didn't say much about this yesterday. I had many thoughts. Many feelings. Incidents like these never start with a threat of death. They start with angry emails. Posts to social media. Negative reviews on sites that rate teachers. Spewing negativity to others about said professor. THEN it escalates. 

When I entered education, I was trained how to teach. How students learn. How they cope. How to handle crisis. How to counsel. 

More recently, I've been trained on safety measures. How to recognize and refer students in distress and dealing with potential mental illness. And unfortunately, how to deal with active shooter situations. I learned that a belt tied around the top of a door closer can stop it from opening. Doors were made to prevent students from locking themselves inside and doing things that they shouldn't be doing in school - no one thought about students having to shelter in place. I expect to attend training and professional development on my discipline, new learning and teaching methods, how to use the new online student learning system. 

I shouldn't have to attend yearly safety training on how to protect myself from a campus shooter.

I've been threatened by a student. Harassed. All of the things I've mentioned above. I've taken a hit to my professional reputation due to negative reviews online. I know that my colleagues have as well. My circle has gathered around when we needed to provide support for each other - it takes a toll. It makes you question why you do what you do. It breaks your spirit. It breaks your soul. Know we do our best, and practice under the "do no harm" mantra. What happens when someone wants to do harm to one of us? It's something I have to think about more than I want to. It's something that make yesterday's killing of a respected and beloved university professor all too real for me.

Every time I see an email from a student, I feel a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Why? Because I still feel everything from what happened in the past. With one student. One harasser (30+emails). One threat. A big one. This individual left messages. Left posts. These need to be reported. Stopped. Could reporting the messages/posts/comments have stopped yesterday's shooting? I would hope so, but it likely wouldn't have. 

It's unfortunate that our educational systems have to deal with this. We should be spreading knowledge. Messages of progress. Innovation. Critical thought. Peace. Not violence. Not gunfire. 

I mourn the loss of a great professor, even though we've never met. I mourn the loss of his knowledge, his kindness to students, his mentorship to others. I mourn for his family. His children. The life that was lost.
 
#WearOrange #InSolidarity #‎Educationatyourownrisk ‪#‎stoptheshootings ‪#‎findanotherway ‪#‎Ishouldnthavetobeafraid ‪#‎protectourstudents ‪#‎protectourprofessors