Carol is a novelist and a doctor, just as she always dreamed of being.

Born in London, she was eight months old when she moved to Alexandria with her Egyptian mother and British father. She returned to the UK at 18 to go to Cambridge University where she studied medicine and her fellow students.

Once she found time to write alongside general practice, she became well-known as a medical journalist. She wrote for the UK's number one newspaper for over 20 years, and authored and edited a string of non-fiction books.

Carol’s sense of fun has never been far from the surface. You may still be able to find her articles in tattered copies of Punch magazine in dentists' waiting rooms. Her fiction is also infused with a sharp wit and reflects her diverse background. Set in Egypt, The Girls from Alexandria is her latest novel.

Carol is a Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge, and deputy chair of the charity Action on Pre-Eclampsia (APEC). She teaches on medicine in the media at Imperial College, London, where she earned the Outstanding Contribution to Teaching award 2022. In September 2022, she delivered the prestigious Olsen Lecture.

Her three sons are all adults. Carol now lives with her husband and cat in Hampstead and Cambridge.