Carol grew up on the banks of the Thames. Her father was a head gardener.

In 1973 she and her first husband, a musician, moved to a small-holding in Wales, where they had 4 children, and lived the ‘good’ life, keeping pigs, chickens, a house cow, and growing their own fruit and vegetables. She learned to play the clarinet, and sang and played in various jazz combos for the next 20 years in Wales and the Borders.

On their divorce she moved to Snowdonia and eventually Anglesey with now husband, Nigel, a marine engineer. They are both keen walkers and have completed the Tour de Mont Blanc twice. Carol has also walked the Haute Route from Chamonix to Zermatt and hiked Cathedral Peak in the Drakensberg, cycled over the Pyrenees, through the Rif mountains of Northern Morocco, and the West Coast of Ireland.

At the age of 60 she learned to SCUBA dive and is a survey diver for Seasearch UK. Although warm tropical seas are very inviting, she insists the coast round the British Isles has some of the most interesting diving in the world – despite the visibility often being no more than 6 inches.

She has been a prolific writer of poetry and short stories all her life. The Alchemy of Kindliness is her first full-length novel and most of the background material for the book derived from her experience of village life in rural Berkshire and North Wales.

She currently works part-time in the NHS. She remains a keen gardener, with an interest in medicinal herbs.