BEING right is a gratifying feeling, especially so when you come across something good which you want to share with others, only to find your enthusiasm is matched by such a prestigious institution as the Galaxy British Book Awards (GBBA). When I read Watford author Katharine McMahon's Crimean love story The Rose of Sebastopol last year, I was eager to pass on my praise for the book to our readers and even included it in my round-up of noteworthy events of 2007. For it to be shortlisted among the top ten for the Richard and Judy Book Club Best Read of The Year at the GBBA is just the icing on the cake for me, but for the author it could spell the start of much bigger things to come.

The book club selects ten titles per year for its shortlist and each is given a segment on Channel 4. Last year's winner was The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld.

Katharine is the only female author on the shortlist and the segment on her book will air next week. For the show, Katharine was filmed in her Oxhey village living room and actors were hired out to perform an excerpt from the book in the Old Operating Theatre in London. Over the next ten weeks, people can vote for their favourite title with the winner being announced at this year's glittering GBBA awards ceremony. Renowned as the publishing industry's equivalent to the BAFTAs, the awards are the glitziest event in the UK book industry's calendar, celebrating the nation's favourite books, authors and publishers.

Katharine says being selected by the Richard and Judy Book Club has already made an enormous difference to her career. She says: "The exposure is so good my publishers have now bought my backlist, which is great news for me. This is my sixth book and to have the others back in print is fantastic recognition. In the beginning it can be so hard to make a mark. When it came out I had no reviews from national papers as it's so difficult to make that break. For it to be recognised now is like a miracle and to be the only woman on the list is quite extraordinary."

Katharine's back catalogue includes Footsteps set on the Suffolk coast, which she says is about a woman whose finds out about her husband's attachment to someone else when he is killed in a sudden accident and The Confinement, which juxtaposes the life of a teacher in Victorian times with a contemporary setting.

"It's about how these women battle out their personal and professional tensions and the little ironies and tags attached to women in education," says Katharine.

The Confinement is one of the closest to Katharine's own experience. The Harrow-born author studied English and drama at Bristol University and went on to teach at St Michael's in Garston, Kings Langley School and in Edgware before realising "writing and teaching don't go together; there's too much of a conflict because the creative energy that's needed in the classroom leaves little left for writing."

A mother of three, Katharine works on her books in between mentoring creative writers on a one-to-one basis at university level and bringing up a family. She is also a magistrate and performs with the Abbey Theatre in St Albans. Her last role was in The Importance of Being Ernest.

Although each of her books is a meticulously researched "one-off" they are all about strong female characters, which is also the case with her next book, due for release next year.

"It's a courtroom drama about a woman lawyer in the 1920s and I'm thinking it will be out around May next year. It's been very difficult to get certain information on women in the legal profession at the time but I've been able to use my experience of the courtroom for this book. I can certainly identify with my character spending time in a wet magistrates' court."

Katharine's slot on Richard & Judy is on Wednesday, January 23 at 5pm, Channel 4. The overall winner will be announced on Wednesday, April 9. The Rose of Sebastopol is published by Orion Books