The leap from writing children's literature to penning adult fiction is sort of like the jump from acting to singing — many have tried it, but only a few (Judy Blume, for instance) have succeeded. So nobody is quite sure what to expect from Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling's upcoming novel for adults, announced Thursday by publisher Little, Brown, and Co. Rowling's only revelation: It "will be very different to the Harry Potter series." Expectations are high — fan Natalie Summers gushed on Twitter that "Rowling announcing a new book is almost like God announcing a follow-up to the Bible" — but after selling more than 450 million Potter books to addicted fans, can Rowling's second act be anything but a letdown?
Rowling's got a sure-fire hit: "No matter what the subject, Rowling is a talented author and I’ll certainly be interested to read whatever she’s come up with," says Germain Lussier in SlashFilm. And I'm nowhere close to alone in that. As the Potter books "got consistently darker, more adult," they were still "adored by everybody." Now that she's writing a proper adult novel, readers of all ages will flock to it, "even without a boy wizard a the center."
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