Tassie Morris is everyone’s favourite wedding photographer, famous for her photos of offbeat ceremonies and alternative brides. Yet commitment is proving impossible for Tassie herself, who cannot forget her first love.

When she’s sent to photograph a ceremony on Schiehallion – the Fairy Hill of the Scottish Caledonians – she meets Dan, who might be the one to make her forget her past. That is, until a family crisis begins a chain of events that threaten to destroy not only Tassie’s love life, but her entire career.

Set in a colourful world of extraordinary weddings, Shoot the Moon explores the complexities of different kinds of love: romantic love, mother love, friendship. And, ultimately, the importance of loving yourself.

My thanks to Bella Cassidy for inviting me to review her book, Shoot The Moon, and for providing me with a copy for that purpose. I have reviewed the book honestly and impartially.

This book is a contemporary romance that feels fresh and real and portrays relationships the way they truly are. Tassie Morris is a successful wedding photographer, but the rest of her life is a little bit of a mess. She has great friends, but a car crash of a love life and difficult relationships with her family.

The premise of the book is genius, because it puts Tassie at the heart of romance every day as she travels around photographing the most glamorous weddings she can find for the magazine she works for, and throws into sharp contrast her own disastrous romantic situation. In making Tassie a celebrity wedding photographer, it allows her imagination to run wild with extravagant and outlandish wedding themes which are really fun to read.

Tassie herself has an unhealthy relationship with her childhood sweetheart, Alex, who we, the reader, can see is no good but Tassie doesn’t seem to be able to get over until she meets Dan. However, as in all good stories, the path of true love never did run smooth and there are plenty of bumps for Dan and Tassie to get over on the way to a happy ending. All of the events that prevent them being together ring authentically in the story, none of them are outlandish or beyond belief which make the book engrossing, because you can fully get lost in the story.

Just as important to the story, however, are Tassie’s other relationships – with her family and with her friends. Because her family ties are strained, Tassie has created another family with her close friends, which is beautiful to read about. But it is Tassie’s relationship with her mother and how the changes over the course of the book which gives the story its meat and its heart and to which many people will be able to relate. This is a story of secrets and heart ache and a lack of honest communication, which will be all too familiar to many.

I thoroughly enjoyed Shoot The Moon. It felt a little different to many romance novels on the market. Not at all twee or overly smaltzy, very grounded and routed in the reality of human relationships and the way people connect to one another. I loved the characters, the settings, the plot and the writing and would love to read more by this author.

Shoot The Moon is available now in paperback and ebook formats and you can buy a copy here.

About the Author

Bella Cassidy grew up in the West Country – spending many nights as a young child reading torch-lit books under the bedcovers. After a few years in London, working as a waitress and in PR and advertising, she went to Sussex to read English – despite admitting in her pre-interview that during this rather sociable period in her life she’d read only one book: a Jilly Cooper.

There followed an eclectic range of jobs: including in the world of finance; social housing fundraising; a stint at the Body Shop – working as Anita Roddick’s assistant; as a secondary school teacher; then teaching babies to swim: all over the world.

She’s done a lot of research for writing a weddings romance, having had two herself. For her first she was eight months pregnant – a whale in bright orange – and was 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.

Connect with Bella:

Facebook: Bella Cassidy

Twitter: @BellaMoonShoot

Instagram: @bellamoonshoot