THE daughter of an Oxford University college master has made the shortlist of a prestigious children’s book awards.

Robin Stevens was born in California but came to live in Oxford as a child when her English father, Robert Stevens, was appointed master of Pembroke College.

Her surroundings inspired her to write and now her first novel, Murder Most Unladylike, is a contender for the title of Best Fiction for five-12s in the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize.

Ms Stevens, 27, said: “It’s just huge. It’s like a dream come true.

“I’ve always wanted to be a writer and these awards are so auspicious – I’m such a fan of previous winners.

“It’s a wonderful prize because it focuses on authors just starting out and it does an important job of highlighting new writers.”

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The author came to live in Oxford in 1993 and attended the Dragon School.

She said living in the college was a great environment in which to hone her creative skills.

Ms Stevens said: “It was amazing growing up in such beautiful surroundings. I was surrounded by all these amazing people doing amazing things and I think that’s partly why I was interested in becoming a writer, because there was so much culture.”

She said: “I was always writing and I wrote the first draft of my first book just after I left university and was back living with my parents in Oxford, working out what to do next.”

Murder Most Unladylike, released in June last year, is about schoolgirls Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong, who set up their own detective agency and investigate the death of a science mistress whose body they discover in the school gym.

A sequel called Arsenic for Tea followed in January and a third novel featuring the intrepid duo, First Class Murder, is due for release in July.

Ms Stevens’s novels coincide appears to be in line with a return to popularity of murder-mystery novels for children.

She said: “I loved detective novels when I was young and children still love crime fiction.

“I keep going to schools and they are reading Sherlock Holmes and watching Death in Paradise.”

Fellow Oxford writer and illustrator Suzanne Barton has been shortlisted in the Best Illustrated Book category with her novel The Dawn Chorus, which follows the adventures of a small bird called Peep.

It is her the author’s first book, published after she finished an MA in Children’s Book Illustration at the Cambridge School of Art.

The winners of the three categories, whichalso includes Best Book for Teens, will be revealed at an evening reception at Waterstones Piccadilly, in London, on Thursday, March 26.