A mother-of-two from Kingston Lisle, near Wantage, has been shortlisted for a national award for her debut novel.
Readers voted to put Eliza Graham's Playing with the Moon in the top 10 of the World Book Day's Top Ten Books to Talk About.
The winner of the award will be chosen on World Book Day on March 6.
The 44-year-old, a freelance proof-reader who is married to Johnnie, 54, said: "It is very exciting and very unexpected to have been shortlisted.
"It was quite a hard book to write because there is a bereavement in it which I found tough to write, but the whole experience of writing was very enjoyable and challenging.
Playing with the Moon, which took a year to write, is set on the Dorset coast and concerns a wartime inter-racial romance.
She added: "It was a visit to a village called Tyneham on the coast of Dorset about 10 years ago which had a haunting and abandoned feel to it and the memories have stuck with me. I kept on thinking about it after I left."
The Historical Novels Review called the book "a powerful tale".
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