Jk Rowling steps back into the literary world for the first time since the global success of her seven books about an unassuming young wizard named Harry Potter who ends up saving the world. Or something. They got pretty big, possibly a few films were made about them, some global acting stars came out of it, Rowling made an awful lot of money, we're pretty sure that's what happened.

Anyway, after all of that, Rowling is returning with a new novel aimed at an adult audience. It's something she's to be lauded for given that she could've long since retired from writing after the huge success of the Potter books. However, she's decided to switch her audience and test herself and her now huge reputation. The Casual Vacancy has now received its first review by the New Yorker, and comes off the news that it's already the third best-selling book on Amazon despite not being published until Thursday (September 27th).

The writer of the piece concludes that "The Casual Vacancy" will certainly sell, and it may also be liked. .But whereas Rowling's shepherding of readers was, in the Harry Potter series, an essential asset, in "The Casual Vacancy" her firm hand can feel constraining. She leaves little space for the peripheral or the ambiguous; hidden secrets are labelled as hidden secrets, and events are easy to predict. We seem to watch people move around Pagford as if they were on Harry's magical parchment map of Hogwarts." Something which suggests this book isn't likely to gain new fans, but won't necessarily lose her old ones either.