J.K. Rowling is a very busy woman. 2016 alone saw the opening of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, a sequel play based on her works that debuted in London and is now seeking its home on Broadway. She adapted her own book into a screenplay for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, also out this year, and then announced four sequels to the movie. And in all that time, she managed to maintain her ever-engaged Twitter presence. You’d think she’d be due for a holiday right about now, but when a fan asked (via Twitter, naturally) whether Rowling is writing anything new, not only was the answer yes, but that Rowling was actually working on her next project—make that projects, plural—at the moment the question was posed.
Rowling revealed that she has not one but two novels in the works, one under her own name, the other under her pseudonym, Robert Galbraith, which she uses for her Cormoran Strike books. Rowling first adopted the pen name for The Cuckoo’s Calling, saying that she hoped to write without the hype or expectations placed on her as the author of Harry Potter. But her secret has been out for years, and her announcement has certainly brought the hype for what will be the fourth book in the detective series.
But what about the other novel, the one that will say “J.K. Rowling” on the cover? All we really know is that it won’t be about Newt Scamander, the hero of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Rowling has only published one other non-Potter novel under her own name, The Casual Vacancy, in 2012. That book was a whole different animal from the books that made Rowling famous, exploring class and social issues in a decidedly unmagical setting, making it as un-Potter-like as could be.
Hopefully her next will be just as suprising.
