Patience pays off for Harrogate doctor turned new James Herriot

By Graham Chalmers
Author and doctor, Carol Tetlow.Author and doctor, Carol Tetlow.
Author and doctor, Carol Tetlow.

Patients in the Harrogate area will know her as Dr Brooks but to the fiction buying public she is Carol Margaret Tetlow, author.

A passion for books which began in her schooldays but never left her during her 30 years as a partner in Moss and Partners surgery in Harrogate has led to the publication of this former GP’s first novel in a four-part series.

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Set in a doctor’s surgery in the fictional Yorkshire market town of Lambdale, forget All Creatures Great and Small, Carol’s stories are a case of All Patients Great and Small where professional and personal lives collide to the backdrop of gorgeous Dales scenery.

Having harboured her literary ambition for a long time, it’s been a painstaking process to get to the point where her first novel has been published properly in print.

In fact, Out of Practice was written in 2007. She’d almost given up hope when her writing found favour with French Canadian publishers Editions Dedicaces.

Coincidentally, this happened just as Carol prepared to retire from her real-life doctorly duties.

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Her new-found status was confirmed recently when she enjoyed her first book signing at Waterstones bookshop in Harrogate.

Carol said: “There have been many times when I have almost, but not quite given up. But I knew I had to keep trying. The book signing at Waterstones in Harrogate, a town where I have worked for over 30 years, was the icing on the cake.”

Despite having her characters, plots and scenery all worked out, inspired by places in the Harrogate district, it was impossible for Carol to even think of being published until she found an agent.

Even when she did find one, calamities followed. She said: “The first agent I found gave up without even telling me. The second did manage to get two of my novels published on Kindle but then decided it was too difficult to make a living as a literary agent and went off to set up a school in Botswana!”

Excitingly, Carol has just learnt her second book will also be published.

Out of Practice is available on Amazon Kindle, barnes and noble and more and on paperback through biblio.co.uk

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