Publishers Little, Brown and Company have dropped a first look at Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling’s new book ‘The Casual Vacancy’. While the cover of her post Potter novel is simple, clean and bright, it’s far from what fans are previously used to seeing from the writer who created an empire from her stories that followed a boy wizard. It looks like this time around Rowling is going in a whole new direction. More details have also been revealed on the publisher’s website regarding the adult novel.

“When Barry Fairbrother dies in his early forties, the town of Pagford is left in shock. Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war. Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils…Pagford is not what it first seems. And the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity, and unexpected revelations? A big novel about a small town, “The Casual Vacancy” is J. K. Rowling’s first novel for adults. It is the work of a storyteller like no other.”

Rowling’s new 512 page book is due out on September 27, 2012. Get a look at the cover of ‘The Casual Vacancy’ below.