Orion Fiction picks up Pembroke festive romance in two-book deal

Orion Fiction has picked up a festive romance from Sophie Pembroke in a two-book deal.

Commissioning editor Victoria Oundjian bought world rights from Gemma Cooper at the Bent Agency. The Wedding on Mistletoe Island will be published in October with the second novel, Summer on Seashell Island, following in summer 2020.

Her first book explores the reunion of seven people 10 years after they spent a summer on Mistletoe Island that changed their friendships forever. The synopsis explains: “This Christmas, the friends have reunited there for Fliss’s wedding. But it’s not just the seven of them any longer, and a lot can change in ten years. The island that’s held all their secrets for so long is ready to give them up. Can they all move past who they were to become who they want to be? And can their friendships – and relationships – survive it if they do?”

Oundjian said: “From the very first page I couldn’t put down The Wedding on Mistletoe Island, Sophie has a way of inviting you into warm and welcoming worlds packed with friendship, romance and brimming with hope. The story of seven friends revisiting the same cottage on a remote Scottish island ten years later had me hooked, especially as their secrets all began to spill out. Utterly uplifting, heartwarming and full of love, this is the book to curl up with by the fire on long winter nights this year.”

Pembroke added: “I'm so thrilled to be working with Orion and my editor Victoria to publish The Wedding on Mistletoe Island. It's a book that's grown in my heart and my head over the last few years, until I couldn't help but write it. I'm fascinated by the importance of friendships in our lives, how they adapt and change as we do - and most of all how the best friendships can survive almost anything.”