New script on Harry Potter, out as book in July 2016

New Delhi, Feb 11: An original new script co-authored by J K Rowling, who has written the famed Harry Potter book series, is set to hit stores this July in the form of a book titled "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts I and II," publishers Little Brown Group have said.

"The Special Rehearsal Edition of the script book will be published at 00.01 on July 31, 2016, following the play's opening on July 30, bringing the eighth Harry Potter story to a wider, global audience," publishers Hachette India said.

Hachette is distributing in India the book of the stage collaboration by Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany.

The script eBook would be published simultaneously with print editions by Pottermore, in collaboration with Little, Brown Book Group in the UK, and Scholastic in the US and Canada.

"J K Rowling and her team have received a huge number of appeals from fans who can't be in London to see the play and who would like to read the play in book format - and so we are absolutely delighted to be able to make it available for them," David Shelley, CEO of Little, Brown Book Group said in a statement. Incidentally July 31 is Harry Potter's birthday.

The storyline picks up 19 years after the seventh book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," ended in the year 2007, and catches up with Harry, Ron and Hermoine.

According to information provided by the publisher, Harry is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband, and father of three school-age children.

While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes darkness comes from unexpected places.

Rowling has authored seven books in the Harry Potter series, published between 1997 and 2007, which have sold over 450 million copies worldwide, are distributed in more than 200 territories and translated into 79 languages, and have been turned into eight blockbuster films.

She has also written three companion volumes "Quidditch Through the Ages" and "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them", and "The Tales of Beedle the Bard."

PTI