Description

TWELVE MOONS follows a year spent caught between the wild sea and the changing moon of the wide Northumberland skies.

Caro Giles lives on the far edge of the country, with her tribe of daughters: The Mermaid, The Whirlwind, The Caulbearer and The Littlest One. She is at once alone and yet surrounded. Bound by circumstance, financial constraints, illness and the challenges of single motherhood, she has nowhere to go but the fierce landscape that surrounds her.

Over the course of the year, the moon becomes her fellow traveller through dark times, and companion through joyful ones – and even when the sky is wreathed in cloud, the moon is still felt in the pull of the tides.

TWELVE MOONS follows the lunar calendar, each chapter sharing a month and a moon, and shows the simmering power that lies in our often hidden daily lives. A dazzlingly honest memoir that while never turning away from the awkward truths of life, also shows how love will flourish if we can only find a space for ourselves.

Set against windswept beaches and ancient hills, this is a story steeped in nature and landscape. Since our earliest days, mankind has looked up at the moon and seen a story reflected back. Twelve Moons is one of those stories – a book about finding yourself, your voice and a sense that even in the dark of the night, we are never truly alone.

Publisher Review

'A work of such determined beauty and generosity: the story of a mother making art and meaning in a difficult year and a remote location. Moonlit, full of strong tidal feeling, and deeply moving' Tanya Shadrick 'An incredibly poetic memoir...a woman finding her way back to herself' Marianne Levy 'A beautiful, absorbing story of what happens when a family doesn't fit the mould and how solace can be found in the elements' Amy Liptrot 'She writes of the everyday act of mothering - of caring & advocating for her children / with such unassuming, humble, raw grace. This is wild mothering like I've been longing to read : female identity , how we make our own community, the work still left to do so mothers of all shapes can mother how they see fit. The sea, the city, heartache, sorrow, exuberant joy, birds - and the moon - always the moon - lighting the path ahead. A gorgeous, touching telling of a year of wild mothering - at the edge of place and time - but written straight from the very heart of its author' Kerri ni Dochartaigh 'In this raw, fiercely honest memoir Caro Giles illuminates the madness, magic and mess of motherhood. It is a love letter to the wilds of Northumberland, a song to the pull of the sea and a heartful exploration of what it means to be broken and to fight to piece yourself back together' Lulah Ellender 'A hypnotic memoir of motherhood, moving on and making space for the extraordinary magic of every day. Twelve Moons is an exploration of the annihilation and reclaiming of self that so many readers will recognise and return to. Caro Giles' writing exerts a gravitational pull, and her story of entanglement and enchantment, loneliness and love is a gift for these times' Rebecca Schiller