After briefly studying at the University for Foreigners in Perugia, and then graduating from London University with a BA Hons in Italian, Caroline and her husband spent some time abroad. Following a period in Berlin, they went with their two young children to Rome, and during their five years in Italy she became a teacher of English as a Foreign Language. Having returned to England, she taught in a country preparatory school for the next decade until the 1990s, when the whole family moved to London. Here she took the final diploma with the Institute of British Linguists, and then became a part-time employee of the Foreign Office as an Accompanying Officer for its overseas visitors. However, wanting to return to academia, she decided at last to go back to UCL, where she completed a Masters in French and the Theory of Literature, before taking a PhD, her doctoral thesis concentrating on ‘Voltaire and Tolerance in the Enlightenment’. Subsequently, while lecturing on cruise ships and for charity events, she was encouraged to take up one of her early ambitions to start writing, and since her first book on the history of the Baltic region, she has completed a second – this time focusing on the region of the Adriatic.