Rowling’s UK-based publisher, Little, Brown Book Group have announced that Harry Potter’s successor will be none other than Barry Fairweather, a chap in his early forties who dies rather unexpectedly. But we're getting ahead of ourselves here. J.K. Rowling’s newest novel will be a dark comedy called The Casual Vacancy.

Now with the 450 million copies of Harry Potter sold worldwide, you’d think that Rowling would have nothing to worry about. However critics have already been lining up to question the unpublished novel’s success. The most recent of these was Sameer Rahim, from the Telegraph who wrote of his fear that The Casual Vacancy’s success would be because of readers being curious after being left when Harry graduated.

But in this move away from the wizarding world, Rowling seeks to paint an English idyll in Pagford, with a cobbled market square and an ancient stone abbey.  So when Fairweather dies, the town is left in shock, especially as it is a town at war. Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils...

It sounds like fun, especially when the election comes around for the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council, who doesn’t love a bit of passion, mixed with a bit of duplicity and topped off with a cherry of unexpected revelations? Blackly comic, we're definitely looking forward to Thursday 27^th September, 2012 when the book will be published in hardback, ebook, and unabridged audio both for download and on CD.