This blog post is written by Beth Wardell. Beth is a freelance writer who lives and works in Northumberland. She is passionate about supporting local freelancers and you can read about her funded project for freelancers, here. Beth helps with the blogs for Culture Northumberland as well as sharing some social media posts. Follow Beth @girlaboutnorthumberland_ or email girlaboutnorthumberland@hotmail.com if you would like to chat about writing a guest blog for Culture Northumberland.
As a budding author myself, I want to share with you an exciting new book that is giving debut author Caro Giles her rightful place on bookshelves this coming January (2023).
Caro is a writer and musician based in Northumberland. As well as her debut book she also pens for Psychologies Magazine , has worked with Durham book festival amongst other accomplishments, and runs singing workshops for women. "Singing is good for confidence, mindfulness and making friends."
A multi-sensory experience of the natural world, which invites the reader to become both companion and witness in a timeless account of the power of the sea.
Katharine Norbury
Twelve Moons: A Year Under a Shared Sky
Twelve Moons follows a year spent caught between the wild sea and the changing moon of the wide Northumberland skies. Each chapter lends itself to a stage of the Lunar calendar and is beautifully but above all, honestly, written. Caro writes about her many roles as a mother, a woman and a carer, with an open heart and authentic words that bring to life the challenges of single motherhood as she is at once alone and yet surrounded.
Inspired by the landscape, Caro won the BBC Countryfile New Nature Writer of the Year in 2021 and her writing has appeared in journals, press and periodicals.
Caro lives on the far edge of the country, with her tribe of daughters: The Mermaid, The Whirlwind, The Caulbearer and The Littlest One.
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.
I met with Caro a few weeks ago and together looked on as she proudly held up the cover design to her book. A colleague who was sitting with us, exclaimed “it makes me feel so emotional” to which Caro replied “it is meant to spark emotion”.
Having steadily made my way through the book, absorbing each word so eloquently thought and typed by Caro, I can agree that it stirred emotions in me that I had myself buried deep down, as we carry on with our busy lives giving little thought or acknowledgement to our own daily challenges.
I loved the combination of truthful motherhood stories and the appreciation for the Northumbrian skies.
If you are looking for an inspiring memoir about identity, honest and raw emotions whilst incorporating the dramatic landscape which surrounds us here in Northumberland, then we suggest you order your copy today.
Twelve Moons will be released on January 19th 2023. Available in hardback (£14.99), ebook and audio.
Now available to pre-order from all the usual places. Pre-orders help a debut author enormously because booksellers see the demand and put copies on their shelves. So if you are in a position to be able to, pre-order now.
Caro Tweets @CaroGilesWrites
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