JK Rowling announces seventh Harry Potter title

December 21, 2006

British author J.K. Rowling has revealed the title of the seventh and final book in the Harry Potter series in an online game on her official website. Contenders would click on items to reveal a chamber, then they would use the clues given and guess the title. After fans played a game they were rewarded with the title of the book which is to be called Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. She also revealed that Harry had been taking place in her dreams and she was returning to writing in cafes, as she did 13 years ago.

"One character got a reprieve but I have to say that two die that I didn't intend to die," Rowling, 41, said June 27 on Richard & Judy, a television show run in the U.K.

The book is first published in the U.K. by London-based Bloomsbury and then sent to the U.S. by Scholastic Corp.

"I'm writing scenes that have been planned, in some cases, for a dozen years or even more," Rowling wrote on her website. "I don't think anyone who has not been in a similar situation can possibly know how this feels: I am alternately elated and overwrought. I both want, and don't want, to finish this book (don't worry, I will)."

The film version of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth book in the series published June 21, 2003, is still in production and will be released in July 2007.

Rowling was inspired to write after her mother died from multiple sclerosis in 1990 and after a marriage breakdown. She started writing in Edinburgh cafés. Whenever her daughter Jessica fell asleep she would put her in a carriage beside her and stroll her to the closest café. 300 million books worldwide have been sold and the series has been translated into 47 languages.

No publication date has been set.