A Windsor author has been shortlisted for an award at the 2019 Romantic Novel Awards.

Novelist Kathryn Freeman Is one of the five finalists for the Romantic Novel Award in the Shorter Romantic Novel with her novel A Little Christmas Charm.

The Romantic Novelists Association (RNA) was formed in 1960 and now represents 1000 writers, agents, editors and other publishing professionals. The awards were launched in the same year. Readers are involved in judging the awards, with keen readers asked to rate the nominated books on several criteria including romantic content, characters, plot, dialogue, style and ending.

The readers favourites are presented to a group of industry experts who decide the overall winning. The ceremony will be hosted at the Gladstone Library in London on 4 March.

Kathryn Freeman said, "The story started off as a short Christmas story featuring a cat, written for Your Cat magazine. It grew by 68,000 words, and somewhere along the line I dropped the cat."

Commenting about her novel being shortlisted for the awards, she said, "I'm not just a little charmed to see A Little Christmas Charm on the shortlist. I'm hugely excited!"

David Headley, Managing Director of Goldsboro Books, commented, “The range of themes explored in this year’s shortlist is a testament to the many facets of the romantic fiction genre and Goldsboro Books is delighted to be sponsoring the awards for a third year, and bringing these diverse and entertaining books to readers’ attention.”