Orion Fiction acquires five novels by Center

Orion Fiction has acquired five novels by Katherine Center, whose books include Happiness for Beginners, a Netflix adaptation of which is forthcoming on 27th July.

Commissioning editor Celia Killen acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Chris Scheina at St Martin’s Press. The first book in the deal, The Bodyguard, follows elite bodyguard Hannah who is assigned to protect a famous actor by posing as his girlfriend, and will be published in mass market paperback on 6th July 2023.

Hello Stranger will be published in trade paperback on 11th July 2023 and mass market paperback in spring 2024, and the TV tie-in of Happiness for Beginners will be published in mass market paperback on 20th July 2023. Things You Save in a Fire, which has been optioned for film, and What You Wish For will be published in 2024.

Center said: “I always try to write laugh-and-cry stories about love and struggle, and people doing their best to cope in wry, comic ways. My favourite stories are about how life knocks us down – and how we get back up. I hope UK readers laugh, and swoon, and stay up too late reading.”

Killen commented: “Center’s books are simultaneously laugh-out-loud funny, brilliantly clever and head-over-heels romantic. She invites you to lose yourself in her stories.”