OPTICS: A Novel About Women and Work
and Midlife Muddles

Nobody prepared Kris Wright and her friends for the toughest trial of adulthood: unemployment after age fifty.

All her life, Kris assumed that working hard and doing the right thing would ensure a full and satisfying career. When she unexpectedly loses her job, she’s forced to reexamine those assumptions, reinvent herself, and regain control of her identity.

In this tightly written coming-of-middle-age novel set in Albuquerque, New Mexico, female friendships and changing family dynamics provide the backdrop for a second act no one—least of all Kris—anticipated.

While providing a cautionary tale about the perils facing midlife women in the job market, this feel-good reinvention novel serves up realism with a side of humor and a sliver of revenge.

People Are Saying …

Kudos

Optics was a finalist in the 2021 Next Generation Indie Book Awards in the Career category—in a year when the program drew “more entrants than ever before”! This nonprofit awards program is known as the Sundance of the publishing world and is “the largest International awards program for indie authors and independent publishers.”

Get Your Copy!

Order the paperback from Amazon or Bookshop.org. (Don’t know about Bookshop? See the next paragraph.) You can also order Optics from your favorite physical bookstore.

Use this universal book link as a shortcut to ebook retailers: https://books2read.com/u/b6ZR6p

Support Independent Bookstores

If you are concerned about the fate of independent bookstores—especially these days—please consider purchasing Optics and any other books through Bookshop.org, a B-Corp dedicated to the public good. It pays a portion of each sale to independent bookstores around the country. The link here will take you to my page on the bookselling platform; you can access all books available through the major book distributor that supplies Bookshop and physical bookstores (Ingram) by clicking the Bookshop logo or browse link. Disclosure: When you visit Bookshop through my affiliate page and make a purchase, I will earn a small affiliate fee. Thank you!

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Book Club and Other Events

To schedule readings, book club appearances, and book signings in northern New Mexico and other selected locales, please use the contact form. Note that all in-person appearances will be subject to any current or anticipated social distancing guidelines.

To request participation in book clubs via video call or phone, please use the contact form.

Download a set of Book Club Discussion Questions for Optics.