Moonshot by Alessandra Torre
Released: July 5, 2016
Contemporary/Light Suspense
Self Published

Reviewed by Mandi

I read Hollywood Dirt last year and was really taken by this author’s writing style. Moonshot is different from Hollywood Dirt, for those familiar with her work. I really enjoyed Moonshot but I must warn that this book is not for everyone. Let me tell you why it may not be for you:

1. The hero is a professional baseball player. A very attractive, very good player. Before he even meets the heroine, he is caught having a cocaine, sex-fest with another player’s wife. He gets traded to the Yankees because of this. The heroine, Ty,  is the 17-year-old daughter of the Yankee’s closing pitcher. Her life is baseball.

2. The first day Chase is in New York, he is naked in the locker room, and Ty walks in to grab something and she sees him fully naked. Instead of apologizing, covering nakedness etc… Chase says something like, “Like what you see” as he waggles this peen around. (She is 17).

3. Ty falls for Chase. Hard. I believe they share a kiss when Ty is still 17, she may have JUST turned 18. They start a relationship once she is 18 in secret. They don’t have sex, but they do things. Chase falls in love.

4. The story jumps ahead in time, and years in the future, Ty cheats on the person she is with, with Chase. I’m trying not to give big things away. But Ty cheats on her significant other with Chase.

If cheating is a NOPE for you, this book is probably a nope as well.

So why did I like this book?  First, the baseball aspect. This author portrays baseball so well. Probably the best I’ve read. The culture, the action, the overall feel of baseball is perfect. I love that baseball runs in Ty’s veins. It is her life. She loves baseball probably more than Chase. She has a great relationship with her dad. She isn’t perfect – not even close. She is written well as an 18-year-old newly in love, with a man who has had a lot of women.  When she confronts Chase about his affair with his former teammate’s wife (she is 17 at the time) her questioning reflects her age and her naivety:

“So…you didn’t love her?” I heard the way the question came out. Naive. Young. I know people fuck without love. I’d seen, in ten years around players, a lot of stupid decisions. But, I still needed to ask, needed to know what kind of man sat beside me.

He laughed, hard and cruel. “Love her? No. I’m not entirely sure I even liked her.”

Later, she is written well as an adult who has had her fair share of life thrown in her face. I enjoyed Ty a lot.

Chase falls in love with Ty hard. He is ready for the full commitment shortly after they meet. Their romance is fast-paced, and angsty.

“He couldn’t. Never again, not with anyone else. Nothing would ever, after that moment, compare. Not with her cry, not with her reaction, not with her kiss. A woman shouldn’t be created in such heartbreakingly beautiful combinations. A woman shouldn’t, in fifteen minutes, have the ability to ruin him for life.”

Then something happens which forces them apart for four years. (Trying not to give things away!) They reunite after these four years and the intensity is almost overwhelming. Chase needs her back in his life. I’m not sure I fully believed he would have this intense love for her just based on being with her when she was a teenager – I could have used a little more time with them together at first, before they were broken apart. But I did like how intense their reunion is.

There is also a quietly woven in suspense plot. Girls start getting killed on the last day of the season every time the Yankees don’t make it to the world series. It becomes  a pattern. The author very carefully eases this story line into the book. For the most part, the pages are full of pure angst between Ty and Chase. Oh the angst! But there is a suspense part that presents itself, that makes the ending a little eye-rolly.

Overall though, it’s an engaging, edgy read. I could barely put it down. I really enjoy this author’s voice.

Grade: B

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