After announcing a sequel to her book The Cuckoo’s Calling last week, J.K. Rowling has decided she’s going to go ahead and write five more books in the series as well. According to Entertainment Weekly, Rowling has mapped out the seven crime novels that will follow Afghanistan-war-vet-turned-private-investigator Cormoran Strike and his assistant Robin. The number is notable because there are also seven players on a Quidditch team, seven Weasley children, seven Horcruxes, and, oh yes, seven books in the Harry Potter series.
Unlike Harry Potter and her follow-up novel The Casual Vacancy, The Cuckoo’s Calling was published under Rowling’s pseudonym, Robert Galbraith. Despite her wishes, the news was leaked (and book sales soared), leaving fans to think longingly of an alternate universe in which Rowling kept her identity secret.
It’s exciting news for Rowling fans who can now look forward to Strike dueling Dementors in the third book, infiltrating the Ministry of Magic in the fifth, and doing an awful lot of camping in the final installment. Or perhaps the seven-book structure is merely Rowling’s preferred storytelling method and Strike will never discover there are wizards living all around him. After all, she still has plenty of other ties to the magical world whether she’s being horribly misquoted about Harry and Hermione, working on a play about Harry’s early days, or writing a movie about an adventuring wizard.