This is a beautifully written memoir, following a woman's timeline through the moon cycles as she come to terms with her family's changing dynamic, how the she copes with varying aspects of her children's needs, her own needs and re-discovering herself and her freedom. The familiar certainty of its stages helped provide a certainty and reassurance in contrast to the unpredictability of life. I hadn’t thought to look for it, to decide to make time for it, to recognise it in a world that is so busy. They are beautifully drawn and highlight the necessity of place in allowing fullness of life to take place whilst providing restoration for all the protagonists.

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.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. Giles also struggles with the latter and her writing is honest, sad and funny as what must be an exhausting and draining life is explored. Bound by circumstance, financial constraints, illness and the challenges of single motherhood, she has nowhere to go but the fierce landscape that surrounds her. The challenges of bringing up a young family in isolated Northumberland are laid bare with brutal and heart-rending honesty.

However, I believe it says that by the time the book even began, they had been separated for four years. Considering the moon phases over the course of the year is something I had never consciously done before. The chapters lead us through the year’s moons and their phases, which unites things cleverly - an unexpectedly grounding device.Caro’s world revolves around caring for her eldest, who is autistic and recovering from an illness which has temporarily robbed her of the use of her legs. Twelve Moons is a gorgeous book, an elegy to the power of looking up and of taking solace in nature. The biggest thing that riled me was Giles' constant references to her ex-husband and the almost pining quality to these sections. TWELVE MOONS follows a year spent caught between the wild sea and the changing moon of the wide Northumberland skies. Sometimes the use of candles and their mystical power is a bit too much, but this mother's fortitude is incredible.

It was funny to read the description of jesmond - I could tell exactly where she was, it's really fun when a book includes a place you know. So I loved the idea of this book, and my 2 stars are for the lovely portrayal of Northumberland and the quality of the nature writing. Having to battle systems not adequately equipped with knowledge, finances and sometimes just basic empathy felt all too familiar. I told her that reading memoirs like this make me feel less alone, in sisterhood with others who tread the wild pathways too.A delicately-handled, lyrical exploration of divorce, recovery of self and fierce maternal devotion.

Overall the novel felt to be a contemplation of motherhood and the fierce love between a mother and her daughters. I shared this book with a good friend, a mum like me whose everyday mothering strays from the conventional.

Navigating single parenthood, advocating from her girls and herself - an endless battle to be heard - is isolating and exhausting. By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. 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. A passage in which the author describes having to de-register one of her children from school by the age of six was particularly emotive and hard-hitting.