Nine years after J.K. Rowling's final Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, broke records upon its release, the boy wizard is proving he still has the magic touch.
A book release of the script for new West End play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, is Amazon's most pre-ordered book of 2016 in both the U.S. and the U.K., the online retailer said. It is leading sales for the print edition, as Rowling's original series did, but in a new feat for the Potter franchise, it is also the most popular e-book in Amazon's Kindle store. (The rise in popularity of e-books came after Deathly Hallows was published in 2007.)
The Cursed Child script—co-written by Rowling, screenwriter Jack Thorne and the play's director John Tiffany—will be released on July 31 to coincide with the play's official opening on July 30. The two-part production has been in previews since early June at London's Palace Theatre.
"For the millions of us who are Harry Potter fans, a new Hogwarts story is a huge event," said Amazon's books editor Seira Wilson. "I'm excited to see how the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child script fits in with the books we know and love. I could easily see young fans adapting to the format and using it to act out the play on their own."
The last Potter book release, Deathly Hallows, broke sales records in the summer of 2007, selling 11 million copies in its first 24 hours of release. Can Potter-mania strike again for a script?
Cursed Child is set 19 years after the novels and picks up with a now adult Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley seeing their children off to Hogwarts magic school.
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