MOST TOLD and retold rags to riches story, she created history with one of the most loved children’s book of the modern times. JK Rowling, who once penned down the iconic Harry Potter, that had a world wide appeal, completed her series to be followed by commercially very successful and high grossing films.

With Bloomsbury about to celebrate the completion of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’s (debut book of Rowling) 15th anniversary, the author is all set to start her next book and as announced yesterday, this time her target audience would be adults. Although Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows did deal with complex situations in life and was a very dark book, it would remain essentially a children’s book.

However, with Rowling about to start a new phase in career, the most important question surfaces. Would she be able to create the kind of magic she did with Harry Potter and will the people accept her next work?

If we go by Twitter and what her fans are updating each hour, we can say that every eye is focused on her. Not only readers but book critics, all the big studios (thinking that her next may also turn into another Potter series) and directors all are awaiting the arrival of the next Rowling book. To quote a tweet, “ Does JK Rowling's new novel become the most-anticipated book of all-time? It's like god announcing a follow-up to the Bible.” The announcement alone is getting this kind of attention, then one can imagine what will happen after the actual book comes out.      

Nothing much has been divulged apart from the fact that this time the author would no longer be working with Bloomsbury but with  Little, Brown, a division of French company Hachette Livre, whom she called as her ‘second publishing home,’ as reported in telegraph.co.uk. Bloomsbury and the author are in the best of terms so why did she opt for another publishing house, when her first struck such gold for her? She says that given the fact that she had immense popularity it was only logical for her to have a new publisher. When asked and as reported in telegraph.co.uk, the publishing house Little, Brown did not divulge any information safe for the fact that the ‘further details’ would be announced later in the month.  Ms Rowling’s literary agent, Neil Blair also did not wish to comment.

Not everyone loves the work of Rowling as she has her own critics and many feel that her English is not up to the mark. However, she did make the younger generation read (which is a feat in itself) but there are many people who would be on the lookout for her new novel so as to scrutinise her work. Also there are some who are apprehensive about choice of the subject, while some like the author, Ian Rankin, the Edinburgh-based author, is betting that she would write on the crime genre. Whatever is it and whether she would be loved, judged or criticised is the thing of future, but for now her next novel is the most anticipated novel.