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 of Northumberland, this is a story steeped in nature and landscape. This is a debut memoir that will particularly resonate with anyone who has had their life smashed apart and needed to dig deep, just to keep going. In Caro Giles’s case that’s the reality of divorce and the everyday needs of her tribe of four daughters. Given that she is writing so close to the traumas and challenges, there is a rawness in Twelve Moons that makes for challenging reading at times. But you will soon see that love and tenderness permeate every aspect of the lives we read about. Written with intelligence - a blend of lightness, elegance, and even the elegiac, Twelve Moons immerses you in the Northumbrian landscape, with excursions to other quiet places. This is not the life Caro Giles envisaged - an important thread of the read is to see how she adapts to dramatically changed circumstances simply to make things work… to get through the days.

Award winning composer Peter Raeburn’s work has ranged from films such as Sexy Beast to adverts including Guinness Surfer. Peter’s forthcoming album Recovery is based on his personal experiences after having life-saving brain-surgery.

The chapters lead us through the year’s moons and their phases, which unites things cleverly - an unexpectedly grounding device. No surprise that I, a nature lover, found joy in the descriptions of the natural world. The healing qualities of the non-human are well shown here. As for the humans in this book, this is an overwhelmingly female and feminine tale. But I hope that many other men will find their way to this book, as I did. The big messages of this book - love, recovery, independence, tenacity - are important for all of us. The book tells the story of a tumultuous year of challenge and resilience, caring, mothering and recovering, at a point in Giles’ life when her solace came from the changing moon above and the wild Northumberland sea and skies.

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’ HarperNorth has landed a “deft, fierce and beautiful” début memoir from Northumberland writer Caro Giles. Somehow the darkness soothes me, this mother who has birthed four daughters, and must now raise them in a world that has revealed itself to be harsh and relentless. I worry about how I can show them magic and calm, when they have already seen cruel and unfair.’ Whilst running her blog, Caro decided to study for a masters in writing. 'I was going to go to Newcastle but, because of my responsibilities and not having childcare, I wasn’t able to complete a course in person so I found a virtual masters course in nature and travel writing, and even though I wouldn’t describe myself as a nature writer, I spoke to the course leader who explained that life writing was a big part of the course – and that’s really what I wanted to explore.’ In these hours when the world is sleeping, I feel invincible. I am a mother of course, but I am also the promise of my own future, of who I can become. As I sit and watch the shadows cast from the candles, I see myself dancing, skirt spinning, hair caught in the wind, and I know that a better version of me is emerging .’When I was a child, I didn’t know it would be possible to lose myself. No one told me how fragile that sense of self is. How, like the candles I burn every morning, it can easily be snuffed out. A hypnotic memoir of motherhood…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 Newly published by Harper Collins, Caro Giles‘s ‘Twelve Moons’ is a story of how one person — perhaps particularly a mother — holds within their hands the power to change the world, writes Kerri ní Dochartaigh. Caro Giles lives in rural Northumberland. Her memoir Twelve Moons reflects on the joys and difficulties of immersing herself in the environment that now surrounds her.

The most beautiful and inspiring memoir you'll read in 2023, 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. I was so clueless. Feminism was still a baby. It turned out that ‘having it all’ was just another way of saying ‘doing everything’. Or perhaps ‘doing everything except paying attention to myself’. Had I been naive to think I could have several children as well as a successful career? Adam Henson is a farmer and presenter. He runs Cotswold Farm Park in Gloucestershire, which pioneers rare breed conservation and was opened by his father Joe in 1971. Television credits include Countryfile, Lambing Live, Coast and Inside Out. His latest book ‘Two For Joy’ looks at countryside superstitions and folklore.We were almost invincible, our tribe, and I became used to deflecting questions about our family, and why we looked a little different…’ Lavi pa fasil. Life is hard.” A stone’s throw from hotels and a paradise of beaches, fifteen-year-old Noemi lives in the slums of Mauritius, where ends are met by whatever means necessary. This includes working alongside her mother as a maid at the wealthy De Grandbourg house nearby, where an encounter with a boy changes the course of her life. We hope you will join us, and Caro, Thur sday 19 th January here at FORUM Books, The Chapel, Corbridge. 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.

However, latterly, I found myself increasingly irritated by certain passages of the book. The biggest thing that riled me was Giles' constant references to her ex-husband and the almost pining quality to these sections. I understand that the purpose of the book was for Giles to explore who she was in the wake of her separation. However, I believe it says that by the time the book even began, they had been separated for four years. The fact that there was still this moping, "pity me" tone to her writing made me want to scream and shake her. No woman should be so defined by her relationship with a man that four years later, she still can't bear to think of him. Perhaps this is the point, and that is what Giles is trying to step away from, but every time she brought him up it felt like the antithesis to the feminine strength and independence the book was meant to be cheerleading. Compounding this was the fact that every positive element to the book was immediately followed by some deeply morose emotion or thought that made it quite hard to read at times. It is clear from her writing that Giles is a very anxious and often deeply unhappy person, and whether it was her intention or not, this element of her character held centre stage throughout the narrative. We’re very excited to welcome writer Caro Giles to celebrate the release of her debut book, Twelve Moons: A Year Under A Shared Sky. What I discovered was that, as each day passed in a strange mixture of despair and fierce love, I was slowly and gently building a new life. The very act of learning to be alone with my children, knowing that if I crumbled we would all break, allowed me to pay attention to exactly who I was and what I was capable of.

That’s how Caro’s journey into writing began. ‘A few years ago my marriage ended so my life looked a little different to what I had thought it would. I started to write more seriously. Life has thrown a lot at me and my family and I guess I’ve explored some of my feelings through my writing,’ she admits.