J.K. Rowling launched her long-anticipated first book for adults to publishing hype, mixed reviews and an enthusiastic welcome from Harry Potter's legion of now grown-up fans.
The lines were shorter and the wizard costumes were missing Thursday but The Casual Vacancy appeared to have some of the same fanfare that greeted each Potter tome, with stores wheeling out crates of the books precisely at 8 a.m. as part of a finely honed marketing strategy.
Almost 1,000 people were attending a reading Thursday evening at London's Southbank Centre, most of them clutching copies of the book to be signed by the author.
Many were young adults who had grown up with Rowling's boy wizard and wanted to see what the author would do next.
"She's been such an inspiration to everyone," said 18-year-old university student Milly Anderson. "She's not just influenced people's childhoods - she's moulded them."
Anderson said she was loving The Casual Vacancy - once she'd got over the change from reading stories about Harry and his Hogwarts chums.
"There's swearing and sex," she said. "It's a bit of a shock."
Published five years after the release of the last Potter book, The Casual Vacancy is already at No. 1 on Amazon's U.S. chart. Betting house William Hill put 2-1 odds on it outselling Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which sold 2.6 million copies in Britain on its first day.
