Twelve Moons: The most beautiful and inspiring memoir you’ll read

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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. Giles examines and processes how the course of her life’s events have led to her current situation: ‘how I have ended up on my own in the Northern most corner of England with four little girls, when I spent my childhood dreaming of bright lights and centre stage? 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. Beautifully describes the shame, vulnerability and then strength that comes from becoming a single parent. In fact, the calm and chaos of their lives mirror the ebb and flow of the tides and the lunar cycle beautifully.

Bound by circumstance, financial constraints, illness and the challenges of single motherhood, she has nowhere to go but the fierce landscape that surrounds her. Overall the novel felt to be a contemplation of motherhood and the fierce love between a mother and her daughters. The familiar certainty of its stages helped provide a certainty and reassurance in contrast to the unpredictability of life. It was a gentle, moving and beautifully written account of a woman and mother on the margins, by virtue of the familial circumstances in which she found herself.

Yet we see, she is gravity to the four girls in orbit around her, her own anxiety waxing and waning over the months, as the landscape around them and the turn of the seasons become her refuge. The trauma of navigating a separation as well as school systems unable to meet her children’s needs felt overwhelming and her honesty with regards to how this impacted her sense of self was something that was identifiable, ‘How can my story be excavated from the mine of my life when so much is devoted to others? 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. Their tribe is a force that is at once fragile, but also characterised by strength and togetherness.

However, that being said, considering this is Giles' first book, Twelve Moons is a debut masterpiece. Sometimes the use of candles and their mystical power is a bit too much, but this mother's fortitude is incredible.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. I have both the audiobook and the print, as it's one of those beautiful reads that you just want to absorb into yourself in every possible medium. empathy for the author's struggles, understanding as a fellow mother of four , a shared love of wild places; her descriptions are utterly magical. The big messages of this book - love, recovery, independence, tenacity - are important for all of us.