Little, Brown and Company publishers have just released the cover of J.K. Rowling’s, “The Casual Vacancy,” a new novel that is set to be released all over the world at the end of September.
The cover is fairly simple. It is primarily red with a yellow border and white text. The only real illustration is a simple black box with a large hand-written black X over it.
Simple covers have not really been Rowling’s style in the past when you look at the complex covers of all the Harry Potter novels. Simple, however, is not always bad, especially when it is paired with one of the most famous and successful authors in the world. Sometimes simplicity is grounds for suspense and intrigue.
“The Casual Vacancy” will be Rowling’s first novel that is aimed at a primarily adult audience. It is set in Pagford, a small fictional English village in which the mysterious death of Barry Fairbrother has occurred.
The town is beautiful in appearance but, beneath its pleasant exterior, war is brewing and it encompasses all aspects of the citizen’s lives. War exists between rich and poor, young and old, among family members and in the community at large. Barry’s unexplained death leaves an empty seat in the parish council and this new election brings the warring to a whole new level.
Expectations are high, since this will be the first novel that Rowling has published since the highly successful Harry Potter series came to a close. The publisher says that “The Casual Vacancy” can be expected to be “blackly comic, thought-provoking and constantly surprising.”
The book is expected to be released September 27.
