Shoot the Moon by Isa Arsén

An evocative novel about one ambitious NASA secretary’s relentless drive to live a big life in a world that would keep her small.

How far would you travel for love?

Intelligent but isolated physics graduate Annie Fisk feels an undeniable pull toward space. When she lands a job as a NASA secretary during the Apollo 11 mission, she feels certain this path is her destiny. Her memories of childhood darkened by loss, she’s left behind her home, her mother, and her first love. And now she’s finally found her purpose. Even typing dictation, the work is everything she dreamed, and despite her budding attraction to one of the engineers, she can’t let herself be distracted. Not now.

So when her inability to ignore an engineer’s mistaken calculations propels her into a new position, Annie finds herself torn between her ambition, her heart, and a mysterious discovery that upends everything she knows to be scientifically true. Can she overcome her fears and reach toward the limits of human advancement? Will she chase her ambitions, and risk losing herself in them? Affectingly achronological in its telling, Shoot the Moon daringly explores one woman’s quest for both intellectual fulfillment and romantic love, the price paid for scientific progress, and the heart’s persistent yearning for home.

Story Locale: Santa Fe, NM; Houston, TX

Isa Arsén is a certified bleeding heart and audio engineer based in South Texas, where she lives with her spouse and a comically small dog. She’s published several shorts and pieces of experimental interactive media. Inspired by her own childhood summers in New Mexico, Shoot the Moon is her debut novel.

Author Residence: Austin, TX