J.K. Rowling To Publish 'The Casual Vacancy,' Her First Novel For Adults

Mega-selling Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling is getting ready to launch her first novel for adults, The Casual Vacancy, due out September 27, according to USA Today.

The 480-page novel, which will be sold in e-book, audio and hardback formats, has been called a "blackly comic" story set in a small English town. It will be Rowling's first book since The Tales of Beedle The Bard, a collection of Potter-related short stories, was published in 2008.

Little, Brown Book Group summarized the plot on its web site. "When Barry Fairweather dies unexpectedly in his early forties, the little 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 fa?ade 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?"