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Carole Cadwalldr grew up in 1970's suburbia in a small village just outside of Cardiff. She studied English at Oxford University but took a year out to live in Prague where she taught English to sports writers.

After graduating Carole worked as a holiday rep in Turkey, and spent several seasons being a tour guide to American teenagers travelling around Europe. After winning a travel-writing competition in The Independent, she started writing guidebooks: to Prague, Soviet Central Asia and Lebanon.

She worked at the Daily Telegraph for seven years where she started out as a trainee and worked her way up to be the chief travel writer. In 2002 she was nominated in the British Press Awards as "Best Specialist Writer." She is currently a freelance journalist and lives in London. The Family Tree is her first novel.