J.K. Rowling has deal for new novel for adults

NEW YORK (AP) — Adult fans of J.K. Rowling can rejoice: She has a new novel coming, for grownups.

The kids will have to wait and see.

The author of the mega-selling "Harry Potter" series has an agreement with Little, Brown in the United States and Britain to release her first adult novel, the publishers announced Thursday. The title, release date and details about the book, long rumored, were not announced. A neighbor of Rowling's in Edinburgh, author Ian Rankin, tweeted Thursday that he thinks Rowling has written a mystery novel.

"Wouldn't it be funny if J.K. Rowling's first novel for adults turned out to be a crime story set in Edinburgh?" Rankin wrote. "My word yes."

Her seventh and final Potter story came out in 2007, and in recent years the British author has said that she was working on an adult book and on a Potter encyclopedia.

Rowling's Potter books, which broke sales records around the world, were published by Bloomsbury in Britain and Scholastic in the U.S. Rowling will now share the same publisher with Stephenie Meyer, whose "Twilight" series at least partially filled the gap opened by the conclusion of the Potter stories.