Shoot the Moon by Bella Cassidy @meHappyShed #BookReview for #RBRT #ContemporaryRomance

Author: Bella Cassidy

Published: August 2021 by Happyshed Press

Category: Contemporary Fiction, Romance, Family Life

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When the love you miss the most is the one you’ve always had.

Tassie loves many things: her friends, her job, her garden. Even her first boyfriend. But there’s a kind of love she just can’t find.

Until, in losing everything, she sees what she needed most was there all along.

Sometimes it’s not the person you need to forget, but the person you need to forgive.

Tassie Morris is a successful wedding photographer, working for a popular bridal magazine. She has a complicated relationship with her mother, loves her friends, her job and her garden and is still hung up on the loathsome Alex. They dated several years ago until Alex upped sticks and moved to America. He’s married with children but that doesn’t stop him ‘catching up’ with Tassie when he’s back in the UK.

When one of the scheduled wedding shoots for Kiss The Bride is cancelled at short notice, Tassie is offered a job in Scotland. The wedding is taking place on a mountain and initially Tassie isn’t best pleased, but a job is a job. There she meets the wonderful, caring Dan…but unfortunately the bad penny has turned up yet again.

I was fascinated by the descriptions of the way Tassie works as a photographer, and the awareness of family dynamics and interactions being witness to the whole day, through a lens, allows. 

As she framed the shot, Tassie knew it would be beautiful. It was important that she understood the workings of each family she photographed, for it made succh a difference to the results. All morning she’d watched the physical affection between Clarissa and her mother, so she’d been prepared for it happening in the service as well. And, glancing at the back of her camera, she was confident the shot would capture the essence of the day.

Told in the third person from Tassie’s perspective, the writing flows well and I enjoyed the different locations, including Somerset and Exeter, and particularly the image inducing descriptions of Scotland and the eventful journey to get to the wedding. There are several other issues covered, including family relationships and secrets, loss and grief, among others, giving the story depth and I did enjoy the touch of the supernatural, as well as the references to cheesemaking and dog breeding. 

I found Shoot the Moon an easy, engaging read, exploring the many complex facets of love. The characters are believable and mostly likeable and, although I did want to give Tassie a good talking to sometimes, it was good to see her evolve and take control of her life and emotions.

I chose to read and review Shoot the Moon for Rosie Amber’s book review team, based on a digital copy kindly supplied by the author.

The book can be found on Amazon 

Bella Cassidy did a lot of research for writing her wedding romance, having had two herself. For her first she was eight months pregnant – a whale in bright orange – and married in a barn with wood fires burning.
The second saw her in elegant Edwardian silk, crystals and lace, teamed with yellow wellies and a cardigan. Both were great fun; but it was lovely having her daughter alongside, rather than inside her at the second one.

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Image by Alexey Hulsov from Pixabay