J.K. Rowling is amongst the contributors to a new book published today and edited by Susan Dalgety and Lucy Hunter Blackburn. The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht is a collection of over thirty essays capturing an important moment in contemporary history: how a grassroots Scottish women’s movement, harking back to the suffragettes and second wave feminists of the 1970s and 1908s, took on the political establishment – and changed the course of history.

In this book women tell the story of their involvement in the five-year campaign to protect women’s sex-based rights, including leading SNP MP Joanna Cherry, Ash Regan MSP, and former prison governor Rhona Hotchkiss.  The book is published by Constable in hardback and eBook, and on 6^th June in audiobook.

Tom Burke and Holliday Grainger are returning for the next instalment of STRIKE – THE INK BLACK HEART, the sixth (4 x 60 minute) story of the BBC’s hit crime drama in co-production with HBO and Warner Bros. Discovery and based on J.K. Rowling’s best-selling crime novel written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.

Head to RobertGalbraith.com for more information.

The seventh book in the Cormoran Strike series, The Running Grave, has gone straight in at No1 in the bestseller lists in the UK, US and Australia after its first week being on sale.

Rave reviews include:

‘The Running Grave is testimony to Rowling/Galbraith’s skill as a storyteller’

– Guardian

‘It is moving, gripping and terrifying’

– Daily Mail

‘a rich, immersive experience’

– The Sunday Times

‘the kind of book you are happy to lose yourself in’

– Scotsman

‘the best duo in detective fiction since Reginald Hill’s Dalziel and Pascoe’

– Telegraph

‘another absolute barnstormer … Unmissable’

– Heat

And Strike fans are loving this new instalment – The Running Grave is the highest rated Galbraith yet by reviewers on Amazon UK, with 4.7 stars out of 5.

The Running Grave by Robert Galbraith (otherwise known as J.K. Rowling) follows the No 1 bestseller from last year, The Ink Black Heart.

For more information visit the Robert Galbraith website here.

In the 10^th year since The Cuckoo’s Calling was published in 2013, the seventh book in the Cormoran Strike series, The Running Grave, is released today in the UK, US, Australia and New Zealand, with other international markets coming soon.

Private Detective Cormoran Strike is contacted by a worried father whose son, Will, has gone to join a religious cult in the depths of the Norfolk countryside.

The Universal Humanitarian Church is, on the surface, a peaceable organisation that campaigns for a better world. Yet Strike discovers that beneath the surface there are deeply sinister undertones, and unexplained deaths.

The Running Grave by Robert Galbraith (otherwise known as J.K. Rowling) follows the No.1 bestseller from last year, The Ink Black Heart.

For more information, click here.

The cover of the seventh book in the Cormoran Strike series, The Running Grave, has been revealed.

In the latest instalment in the highly acclaimed, internationally bestselling series featuring Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott, Strike is contacted by a worried father whose son, Will, has gone to join a religious cult in the depths of the Norfolk countryside.

In order to try to rescue Will, Strike’s business partner Robin Ellacott decides to infiltrate the cult and she travels to Norfolk to live incognito amongst them. But in doing so, she is unprepared for the dangers that await her there or for the toll it will take on her . . .

The Running Grave will be published simultaneously in the UK and US on 26^th September 2023.

2023 also marks the tenth anniversary of The Cuckoo’s Calling, the first novel in the series.

 

Seventh Strike novel to publish this September, in the tenth anniversary year of the bestselling series by Robert Galbraith.

Tuesday 26^th September sees the release of the next in the bestselling series of crime novels by Robert Galbraith. THE RUNNING GRAVE is the brand-new instalment in the highly acclaimed, internationally bestselling series featuring Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott, published in hardback, Ebook and audio editions.

THE RUNNING GRAVE will be the seventh title in a planned series of ten, the first six of which have all been Sunday Times and international bestsellers. The Strike series has been praised as ‘the work of a master storyteller’ [Daily Telegraph], ‘unputdownable’ [Daily Express] and ‘a blistering piece of crime writing’ [Sunday Times]; with Strike and Robin dubbed ‘one of crime’s most engaging duos’ [Guardian].

2023 also marks the tenth anniversary of The Cuckoo’s Calling, the first novel in the series. A year-long run of activity is planned to celebrate this milestone, including a creative consumer campaign that will revisit key elements of Strike and give readers the opportunity to share their favourite moments.

Fans will also have the opportunity to purchase a special anniversary edition of The Cuckoo’s Calling, produced with exclusive artwork, of which further details will be released later this year. As with all previous editions of The Cuckoo’s Calling, royalty proceeds of the new edition will go to ABF The Soldiers’ Charity.

‘It’s been brilliant to see the enormous success of the Robert Galbraith books over the past ten years and an honour to publish them. With over 11 million copies sold in the English language to date, the story of Strike and Robin has captured readers’ imaginations and, like so many others, I can’t wait to see what happens to them over the course of the final four books in the series.’ David Shelley, Group Chief Executive, Hachette UK

‘There are few pleasures richer than knowing a new Robert Galbraith thriller is on the way!  Seven novels into the Cormoran Strike series, J.K. Rowling keeps expanding her already peerless skills in crafting drama, emotion, urgency, and capturing the infinite complexities of the human spirit—in dark and in light.’ Michael Pietsch, Chief Executive Officer, Hachette Book Group.

Pre-order THE RUNNING GRAVE here.

Picture shows: (l-r) Cormoran Strike (TOM BURKE), Robin Ellacott (HOLLIDAY GRAINGER). © Bronte Film and TV. Photo credit: BBC/Bronte Film and TV Ltd/Alex Rendell

Troubled Blood, Robert Galbraith’s 5th Cormoran Strike novel, is coming to BBC One in a 4 part adaptation starting on the 11^th December at 9pm. All episodes will be available to view from 9pm on Sunday 11 December on iPlayer.

Written by Tom Edge and directed by Sue Tully, the series sees Tom Burke and Holliday Grainger return as Strike and Robin.

Private detective Cormoran Strike (Tom Burke) is visiting his family in Cornwall when he’s approached by a woman, Anna Phipps (Sophie Ward) asking for help finding her mother, Margot Bamborough (Abigail Lawrie), who went missing under mysterious circumstances in 1974.

Strike’s never tackled a cold case before let alone one forty years old, but despite the slim chance of success, he’s intrigued and takes it on, adding to the long list of cases that he and his partner in the agency Robin Ellacott (Holliday Grainger) are currently working on. Robin herself is also juggling a messy divorce and unwanted male attention as well as battling her own feelings about Strike.

As Strike and Robin investigate Margot’s disappearance, they come up against a fiendishly complex case with a psychopathic serial killer and witnesses who cannot all be trusted. They learn that even cases decades old can prove to be deadly.

The sixth book in the Cormoran Strike series, The Ink Black Heart, is released today in the UK, US, Australia and New Zealand, with other international markets coming soon. It publishes in hardback, ebook and audio editions, the latter narrated by Robert Glenister.

The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith (otherwise known as J.K. Rowling) follows the No.1 bestseller Troubled Blood (2020), winner of the 2021 British Book of the Year award for Crime and Thriller fiction.

For more information, click here.

 

‘The Ink Black Heart’, the sixth novel in the popular crime series by Robert Galbraith, publishes on 30^th August 2022. In anticipation the author (otherwise known as J.K. Rowling) has recorded a number of answers to questions focused on the new book.

An early excerpt from the Q&A is available here, talking about Private Investigator duo Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott, inspiration for the new book, the locations and the creative process. You can watch or read three of Robert’s responses below.

What does The Ink Black Heart explore?

I see this as a novel about disconnection. And people feeling disconnected in real life. And exploring what they find online as a way of connecting. But – it – I don’t want to give too much away. But the central theme of the book is anomie, which is a state of lacking normal social or moral norms.

And – so, yeah, it’s really an exploration of that. It is a very sort of modern malaise. Although the term anomie has been around for a long, long time and it really – the term arose through industrialisation. People losing meaning in their daily lives and – and feeling that they themselves were not really part of society. Not really part of a whole. So, yeah. So, it’s a big theme. But it is explored in a very sort of contemporary way.

How much of the novel is drawn from your own experience?

I have never created a book – and this book certainly isn’t created from my own experience – you know, with a view to talking about my own life. That doesn’t mean, of course, that your own life experience isn’t in the book.

With this book – I had been planning this book for so long and then a couple of the things that happen in this book have since happened to me. And so, I would like to be very clear that I haven’t written this book as an answer to anything that happened to me. Although I have to say when it did happen to me, those who had already read the book in manuscript form were – are you clairvoyant? I wasn’t clairvoyant, I just – yeah, it was just one of those weird twists. Sometimes life imitates art more than one would like.

But, no, it’s not – this isn’t about my experience of – as being a creator. My experience – if I wrote about my experience as a creator, it would look very different. And I have to say, for example – which I think will be a question readers would ask: the Potter fandom, by and large, has been amazing to me. Incredibly supportive and I still receive tonnes of love from the Potter fandom. So, the fandom in this book is very much not a portrait of the fandom. It is of a very – I think a very different kind of fandom.

What is it that makes Strike and Robin such a good team?

The reason I love writing those two characters so much is I love them both as characters. And I love the friendship. I love writing – and of course I love writing the sexual tension, which I know is – is a big deal for certain readers. But my feeling was always that each of them had quite a lot of changing and growing to do. Even Strike who is 10 years older than Robin.

You know, his – his past is an unusual one. And it has left him with issues that I don’t think he has ever really fully explored. And I feel that in books five and six, this being book six, you start to see him recognising some of this. He has still got a way to go. Equally, Robin, who’s had, you know, not a particularly typical romantic history because of – she has trauma in her past – in this book really does get to show a quite – what I think readers might find quite an unexpected side of her.

So, I love – I love the fact – to me it is a real friendship, they do – they rub – they can occasionally infuriate each other. But they are very complementary personalities, I think. And they – their shared endeavour is really – is at the absolute root of what they value in each other and what they – I think now in this book, particularly at the end when something quite symbolic happens, you see that they recognise that they couldn’t have done it without each other. And that’s – you know, that’s a wonderful feeling when you – when you have a shared endeavour with someone, and I empathise with that a lot.

The full Q&A will be available on 8^th September at 7.30pm BST, on www.robertgalbraith.com.

The wait is over! J.K. Rowling’s new children’s book The Christmas Pig is out today.

Her first children’s novel since Harry Potter, The Christmas Pig, illustrated by Jim Field, is the story of a little boy called Jack, and his beloved toy, Dur Pig, and the toy that replaces Dur Pig when he’s lost on Christmas Eve – the Christmas Pig. Together, Jack and the Christmas Pig embark on a magical journey to seek something lost, and to save the best friend Jack has ever known.

Already hailed as ‘a triumph… her best book since Azkaban’ (Evening Standard) and ‘this wonderful new story from a writer who truly understands what it is to be a child’ (Daily Mail), the book is published by Hachette Children’s Group in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and India, in the US and Canada by Scholastic, and in thirty-five translated languages by other publishers making it a truly global publication.

The English language audiobook is narrated by Amaka Okafor, with Rocco Padden as Jack, Gerran Howell as the Christmas Pig, alongside a full cast and immersive audio experience bringing the characters of this heartwarming adventure about one child’s love for his most treasured thing to life.

The audiobook by Audible is available in English, German, French, Italian, Latin American Spanish, Castilian Spanish, and Japanese.

To celebrate the launch of her new book, J.K. Rowling will be joined by illustrator Jim Field, and Rocco Padden, the voice of hero Jack, at a special family event at Alexandra Palace in London. A recording of the live event will be available to view on jkrowlingstories.com on Sunday 17 October from 10am BST, for all to enjoy.

J.K. Rowling has written a piece for the Sunday Times about the inspiration for the book, and was on BBC Radio 2’s Claudia Winkleman show on Saturday 9^th October talking about the book – you can listen again here.

The cover design for J.K. Rowling’s new book for children, The Christmas Pig, has been revealed! Award-winning illustrator, character-designer and animation director Jim Field has produced a stunning illustration for the cover as well as nine black and white spreads and design features for the interior of the book.

J.K. Rowling commented: ‘Jim’s illustrations are simply perfect. It really is as though he got inside my head and drew what he saw there! I gasped out loud when I saw one particular illustration (I can’t say which it is without giving spoilers), because it was such a perfect representation of one of my favourite scenes.’

Jim Field said: ‘It was ever so slightly daunting when I thought about the number of people who are going to see this cover around the world… No pressure, Jim! Brilliantly, we all agreed on the cover design from the outset, so that allowed me plenty of time to get all the little details right. I wanted to create something filmic, timeless, that captures the excitement of J.K. Rowling’s incredible story and the wonder of Christmas, where the adventure begins. It is really a dream project and I’m so chuffed to be part of it.’

The Christmas Pig will be simultaneously published on 12th October 2021 in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and India by Hachette Children’s Group, in the US and Canada by Scholastic, and in thirty-five translated languages by other publishers making it a truly global publication.  It will also be simultaneously published as an audiobook by Audible in English, German, French, Italian, Latin American Spanish, Castilian Spanish, and Japanese.  Jim Field’s illustrations will feature on the covers of all editions.

J.K. Rowling’s new children’s book has been announced!  The Christmas Pig will be simultaneously published on Tuesday 12th October 2021 in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and India by Hachette Children’s Group, in the US and Canada by Scholastic, in over twenty other languages by other publishers and as an audiobook in English, Spanish, German, French, Japanese and Italian by Audible, making it a truly global publication.

The Christmas Pig is a heartwarming, page-turning adventure about one child’s love for his most treasured toy, and how far he will go to find it.  It’s a standalone story, unrelated to any of J.K. Rowling’s previous work, and is suitable for children 8+: a tale for the whole family to fall in love with.

Jack loves his childhood toy, Dur Pig.  DP has always been there for him, through good and bad.  Until one Christmas Eve something terrible happens – DP is lost.  But Christmas Eve is a night for miracles and lost causes, a night when all things can come to life – even toys…  And Jack’s newest toy – the Christmas Pig (DP’s annoying replacement) – has a daring plan:  Together they’ll embark on a magical journey to seek something lost, and to save the best friend Jack has ever known…

Ruth Alltimes, Senior Group Publisher at Hachette Children’s Books, describes it as ‘a sparkling gem of a story that is destined to find its way into the hearts of children and families across the world this Christmas, and forever after.’  Ellie Berger, President of Scholastic Trade books, says ‘a gift for children and families alike, this story about the enduring power of love can be read together as a holiday tradition, and as a classic tale to be savoured, any day of the year.’

The Christmas Pig is J.K. Rowling’s first children’s novel since Harry Potter, and follows her brilliant return to publishing for children with last year’s fairy tale The Ickabog, which was serialised online for free for children in lockdown and then published with all her royalties donated to her charitable trust Volant to help vulnerable groups impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.  She looks forward to connecting with her younger readers again this winter.

J.K. Rowling’s The Ickabog, an original fairy tale, is to be published as a hardback, ebook and audio book in the English language in November, with international editions to follow soon after.

First serialised for free online this summer on The Ickabog.com, the author wanted to share the personal family favourite, which she wrote over ten years ago as a bedtime story for her younger children, to help entertain children, parents and carers confined at home during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Keen for children to be involved as the story unfolded, J.K. Rowling invited them to send in their own illustrations of her story and its colourful characters as it appeared online.  After an incredible response, the winners of each artwork competition will see their illustration in the published book.

J.K. Rowling will be donating her royalties from The Ickabog to The Volant Charitable Trust to assist those who have been particularly impacted by coronavirus.

For more details including the donation of royalties to The Volant Trust visit https://www.theickabog.com/the-story/

About The Ickabog

The idea for The Ickabog came to me while I was still writing Harry Potter. I wrote most of a first draft in fits and starts between Potter books, intending to publish it after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

However, after the last Potter book I wanted to take a break from publishing, which ended up lasting five years. In that time I wrote The Casual Vacancy and Robert Galbraith wrote The Cuckoo’s Calling. After some dithering (and also after my long-suffering agent had trademarked The Ickabog – sorry, Neil) I decided I wanted to step away from children’s books for a while. At that point, the first draft of The Ickabog went up into the attic, where it’s remained for nearly a decade. Over time I came to think of it as a story that belonged to my two younger children, because I’d read it to them in the evenings when they were little, which has always been a happy family memory.

A few weeks ago at dinner, I tentatively mooted the idea of getting The Ickabog down from the attic and publishing it for free, for children in lockdown. My now teenagers were touchingly enthusiastic, so downstairs came the very dusty box, and for the last few weeks I’ve been immersed in a fictional world I thought I’d never enter again. As I worked to finish the book, I started reading chapters nightly to the family again. This was one of the most extraordinary experiences of my writing life, as The Ickabog’s first two readers told me what they remember from when they were tiny, and demanded the reinstatement of bits they’d particularly liked (I obeyed).

I think The Ickabog lends itself well to serialisation because it was written as a read-aloud book (unconsciously shaped, I think, by the way I read it to my own children), but it’s suitable for 7-9 year olds to read to themselves.

I’ll be posting a chapter (or two, or three) every weekday between 26th May and 10th July on The Ickabog website. The Ickabog is available to read in English (UK/US), French, Italian, German, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese, check the website for updates on additional languages.

The Ickabog is a story about truth and the abuse of power.  To forestall one obvious question: the idea came to me well over a decade ago, so it isn’t intended to be read as a response to anything that’s happening in the world right now. The themes are timeless and could apply to any era or any country.

 

The Illustration Competition

Having decided to publish, I thought how wonderful it would be if children in lockdown, or otherwise needing distraction during the strange and difficult time we’re passing through, illustrated the story for me. There will be suggestions about the illustrations we might need for each chapter on The Ickabog website, but nobody should feel constrained by these ideas. I want to see imaginations run wild! Creativity, inventiveness and effort are the most important things: we aren’t necessarily looking for the most technical skill!

In November 2020, The Ickabog will be published in English in print, eBook and audiobook formats, shortly followed by other languages. The best drawings in each territory will be included in the finished books. As publishers in each territory will need to decide which pictures work best for their own editions, I won’t be personally judging the entries. However, if parents and guardians post their children’s drawing on Twitter using the hashtag #TheIckabog, I’ll be able to share and comment!  To find out more about the Illustration Competition, go to The Ickabog website.

 

Covid-19 Donation

I’m pledging all author royalties from The Ickabog, when published, to help groups who’ve been particularly impacted by the pandemic. Further details will be available later in the year.

 

Huge thanks are due…

… to my dear friend and editor Arthur Levine; to the phenomenal James McKnight of the Blair Partnership, who’s worked tirelessly to make this project a reality in a very short space of time; to Ruth Alltimes at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, whose help has been invaluable; to my peerless management team, Rebecca Salt, Nicky Stonehill and Mark Hutchinson and to my wonderful agent Neil Blair. I promise all of you not to have any more bright ideas for a few months at least.

J.K. Rowling shares early memories of visiting Europe as a teenager and the lasting impression it made upon her, in a contribution to a new book: A Love Letter to Europe: An Outpouring of Love, Sadness and Hope.

The book features contributions from other writers, thinkers, artists and performers and is published by Coronet.

#LoveLetterToEurope

Image © Mary McCartney

Once upon a time, JKRowling.com was a cosy corner of cyberspace where I could share things I was writing, answer readers’ questions, debunk baseless press stories and be as serious or as frivolous as I fancied on any given day. However, when I finished writing the Potter books, my website fell into disuse. I spent a few years writing, not publishing, and enjoying the quiet. A few years ago I resurrected JKR.com, but I didn’t feel the same connection to the new design and it showed, because I hardly ever wrote anything for it.

So I decided to start over. I wanted to bring my website back to what it used to be: something real and personal. This is a faithful representation of my writing desk, except that I haven’t put on the bits of stale popcorn and biscuit crumbs that usually litter the surface. Everything looks a bit tidier and cleaner than it really is, but after all, it’s only polite to make an effort for guests. The various objects littered around really do live in my writing room; some of them have sentimental value, some are practical and others have found their way in via friends and family members.

I write in a room I built in my garden, at a wooden table just like this, with a view of lawn and trees. Family members have to decide whether they’re prepared to make the effort to put on shoes or find an umbrella to come and find me, which makes it the perfect distance from the house: I’m neither accessible enough to be bothered every time a Nintendo DS gets mislaid, nor so inaccessible that I can’t be inside the house and tending to a broken leg within thirty seconds.

(I’m married to a doctor, so yes, I accept that he might be the more logical choice to deal with the broken leg, but Neil might be at work when this happens. Or maybe it’s his leg that’s broken. All right, I accept this isn’t entirely rational: I’m a worrier.)

You’ll find my Twitter feed on here, because Twitter has become for me a nice way of interacting with readers in the website-free years. It also slakes my thirst for pictures of dogs and otters, political arguments and random connections with strangers, which are hard to come by when your profession demands that you sit alone in a room for many hours a day.

I haven’t forgotten the debunking function that I found so useful on my old website, though you might not find the button right away. You’ll also find links to some of the causes and charities I support, including my own charity Lumos, and my charitable trust, Volant.

2016 has been one of the busiest professional years of my life. I didn’t plan for the stage play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and the movie Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them to come out in the same year, but that’s what ended up happening, with the result that 2016 meant an almost total re-immersion in the wizarding world. I’ve been absolutely delighted with the reception of both pieces: the stakes are always very high when you return to a well-loved creation, and after almost a decade of refusing to do spin-offs or remakes, I feel overwhelming relief that both long-time fans and newcomers have enjoyed what we’ve done. Pottermore.com, the digital hub for the wizarding world, does a great job catering for anyone who wants to dig deeper into that world.

Robert Galbraith, my crime writing alter-ego, remains active, and is currently working on his fourth. There’s no publication date as yet, given how busy 2016 has been, but I’m making steady progress. Cormoran Strike fans will be glad to know that filming has already started on the TV adaptation, starring Tom Burke as Cormoran and Holliday Grainger as Robin Ellacott.

With four more Beasts movies to come, I decided my Christmas gift to wizard-lovers should be to answer some of the most frequently asked questions about the plot of the new franchise. There’s also a bonus FAQ, an oldie about Chamber of Secrets that I’ve been asked at least once a week for nine years.

I hope you enjoy your visit and if I don’t see you again before the end of December, I wish you a very happy new year!

 

FAQs

1.     Why couldn’t Newt just Apparate to the USA? Why did he go by boat?
Apparition becomes increasingly risky over long distances. As with most magic, much depends on the skill of the spell-caster: Apparition requires knowledge of the terrain to which one is moving, or the ability to visualise it clearly. Cross-continental Apparition would almost certainly result in severe injury or death.

Moreover, the beasts in Newt’s case had varying magical natures. Some could have Apparated with him, but others could not.

2.    Why did Newt go in through No-Maj customs?
He was transporting magical creatures at a time when this was illegal. No-Majs were far easier to fool than the wizarding checkpoint would have been.

3.    Why couldn’t Newt use ‘Accio’ to retrieve all his beasts?
‘Accio’ only works on inanimate objects. While people or creatures may be indirectly moved by ‘Accio-ing’ objects that they are wearing or holding, this carries all kinds of risks because of the likelihood of injury to the person or beast attached to an object travelling at close to the speed of light.

4.    Why isn’t Veritaserum used in interrogations?
It is, but skilled wizards can avoid its effects by using antidotes and charms. A gifted Occlumens could also resist Veritaserum.

5.    Why did ‘revelio’ undo the effects of Polyjuice Potion?
It didn’t. Grindelwald’s Transfiguration surpasses that of most wizards, so he used a spell, not a potion, to take on the appearance of Percival Graves.

6.    Why didn’t Harry Potter develop an Obscurus?
An Obscurus is developed under very specific conditions: trauma associated with the use of magic, internalized hatred of one’s own magic and a conscious attempt to suppress it.

The Dursleys were too frightened of magic ever to acknowledge its existence to Harry. While Vernon and Petunia had a confused hope that if they were nasty enough to Harry his strange abilities might somehow evaporate, they never taught him to be ashamed or afraid of magic. Even when he was scolded for ‘making things happen’, he didn’t make any attempt to suppress his true nature, nor did he ever imagine that he had the power to do so.

And finally, an oldie but a perennial favourite…

7.    Why wasn’t the Horcrux inside Harry destroyed when he was bitten by the Basilisk in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets?

A Horcrux can only be destroyed if its container is damaged beyond repair. Harry was healed by Fawkes. Had he died, the Horcrux would indeed have been destroyed.

PS I’m being asked all kinds of excellent questions about Fantastic Beasts that I can’t answer right now, because the answers would give away too much about future plots. If your burning question isn’t here, you are probably safe to assume that it will be answered in the sequels!

 

Holliday Grainger and Tom Burke on set  © The Cuckoo’s Calling Ltd   Photographer: Steffan Hill

Filming is now under way for the BBC One TV adaptation of Robert Galbraith’s Cormoran Strike series.  British actor Tom Burke will star as war veteran turned private detective Cormoran Strike, with Holliday Grainger playing his ever-enthusiastic assistant Robin Ellacott.

The Strike Series, which will air on BBC One, is based on J.K. Rowling’s bestselling crime novels, written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith: The Cuckoo’s Calling, The Silkworm, and Career Of Evil.

“I’m overjoyed to be immersing myself in the role of Cormoran Strike who is as complex as he is larger than life,” says Burke. “I know I’m joining an extraordinary team of people on a series that for me is peppered with moments of real emotional depth and meticulously grounded in the page-turning momentum of these novels. Cormoran’s world is rich and raw.”

“I’m thrilled to be joining the talented creative team behind ‘The Strike Series’, especially with the role of Robin Ellacott,” says Grainger. “Her grounded strength and intelligence is going to be a joy to explore. I can’t wait to dive straight into the wit and grit of Strike’s cannily well observed London.”

 

 

J.K. Rowling’s new novel for adults, The Casual Vacancy is published in English.  She comments;

“The Casual Vacancy is set in a small community, which involves writing characters who are adolescents all the way up to people in their sixties. I love nineteenth century novels that centre on a town or village. This is my attempt to do a modern version.  As a writer you have to write what you want to write; or rather what you need to write. I needed to write this book.”

When Barry Fairbrother dies in his early forties, the town of Pagford is left in shock. 

Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade 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… Pagford is not what it first seems. 

And the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations? 

The audio edition of The Casual Vacancy will be read by Tom Hollander, an experienced star of stage and screen.

J.K. Rowling will be talking about her new work at London’s Southbank Centre at 7.30pm UK time today, Thursday 27th September.  The event will be live-streamed on Southbank Centre’s Youtube channel.

J.K. Rowling was named Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur at a ceremony conducted by French President Nicolas Sarkozy in France, 2009.

Under normal circumstances, membership of the Legion d’Honneur is restricted to French nationals. However, foreign nationals who have served France or the ideals it upholds, may receive a distinction – which is held in the same high regard as Legion membership.