Where do you go after Harry Potter? Daniel Radcliffe checked into a haunted house in the English countryside, and Emma Watson will be enrolling in a Pittsburgh high school. But even more excitingly, author J.K. Rowling is posting up in Pagford — and if you’re deterred by the name, just remember that “Hogwarts” didn’t really sound all that appealing at first either.
Rowling has announced the title of her first post-Potter novel, and her first adult-directed book yet: The Casual Vacancy. Details are being withheld, but the author alludes to the fact that Pagford, an ostensible paradise, will actually have some demons brewing. Not literally — you really have to stress that when it comes to Rowling. Little, Brown & Co., the company that is publishing The Casual Vacancy, calls the story, “darkly comic.”
You can’t help but think of some other successful book series authors’ attempts at branching out. In 2008, The Twilight Saga author Stephanie Meyers published The Host, which is in development as its own film adaptation (you can watch the trailer here). Fans might be surprised to learn that Suzanne Collins, author of The Hunger Games, actually wrote the five-book series The Underling Chronicles prior to her Katniss Everdeen trilogy. She also wrote Fire Proof, the eleventh book in the Shelby Woo series.
Are Potter fans looking forward to Rowling’s next venture into literature? Will her new novel capture the same spirit that the wizard series did?
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