Harry Potter author JK Rowling's first novel for adults has hit the shelves and has already notched up advance sales of one million copies, but reviewers gave the gritty tale a mixed reception. 00:01:40 PRWINT CodeNameMMV453472_TEN FileNameMMV453472_TEN-Gaby Wood, head of books, Daily Telegraph -Gary Powell, store manager, Foyles St. PancrasSCRIPT: With advance sales of over a million copies and the contents closely guarded until its release, JK Rowling's first post-Potter novel has been much hyped. But while the commercial success of "The Casual Vacancy" has never really been in doubt -- questions have been raised over the bestselling author's ability to make the crossover from children's to adult fiction. Reviews so far have been mixed: SOUNDBITE 1: Gaby Wood, head of books, Daily Telegraph [English, 24 sec]: "It's very very different from Harry Potter but I think there are some continuities. I think her interest in the teenagers remains and I think this question of darkness has shifted into almost another key, it's like a piece of music, there is a lot of darkness. The thing that she has done is relinquished the hope. The aspect of hope that was in Harry Potter, and she's brought us into a real world which is real in the extreme." The tale of sex, poverty and politics in an idyllic English village is a world away from the wizardry of Hogwarts. But the book is still widely expected to be Britain's top-selling fiction title this year. SOUNDBITE 2: Gary Powell, store manager, Foyles St. Pancras [English, 14 sec]: "If you think of all the people that bought her books as children, as teenagers -- they might have moved on now and be in their mid-twenties so that might translate into sales but then there's a whole new market for the style of fiction that she's writing for as well." With more than 450 million copies of the Potter books sold, Rowling -- already thought to be worth over 500 million pounds -- certainly doesn't need the income from her first foray into adult fiction. But literary acclaim for "The Casual Vacancy" may help cement her place as one of the great writers of our time. SHOTLIST: LONDON, 27 SEPTEMBER 2012 SOURCE: AFPTV -VAR copies of "The Casual Vacancy" on sale in Foyles St. Pancras -VAR customer reading, buying copy of book -VAR setup shots at Daily Telegraph offices -SOUNDBITE 1: Gaby Wood, head of books, Daily Telegraph [English, 24 sec] -VAR somone reading book -VAR books being stacked on shelf -SOUNDBITE 2: Gary Powell, store manager, Foyles St. Pancras [English, 14 sec] -CU Harry potter books on book shelf LONDON, 23 JUNE 2011: -VAR of J.K. Rowling at the inauguration of the 'Pottermore' website -CU poster for "The Casual Vacancy" in window of Foyles St. Pancras, 27 Sept 2012 -"The Casual Vacancy" on book shelf --------------- AFP TEXT STORY Potter author's dark new novel divides critics by Judith Evans =(FILE PICTURE)= LONDON, Sept 27, 2012 (AFP) - First reviews of Harry Potter author JK Rowling's novel for adults on Thursday praised its Dickensian scope and social message, but warned the gritty, even obscene tale was a far cry from Hogwarts. Shortly before the release of the hotly awaited "The Casual Vacancy", several reviewers said they were taken aback to read grimy scenes of sex and drugs, but added the author's most vivid writing was on the familiar ground of adolescence. "I had just read a passage written by the world's favourite children's author in which a teenager is raped by her mother's heroin dealer, a man who may well be the father of the girl's own three-year-old stepbrother, although it's hard to know for sure when the mum concerned is a prostitute," wrote Allison Pearson in the Daily Telegraph. She added that the novel, a story of poverty and politics in an English village -- of which a million copies have been pre-ordered -- was "sometimes funny, often startlingly well observed, and full of cruelty and despair". But the Mirror tabloid labelled it "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Filth", warning the author famed for her stories of young wizards was "sure to face stern criticism for featuring the C-word and F-word hundreds of times". Set in the picturesque fictional village of Pagford in southwest England, the black comedy deals with the fight to fill a slot on the parish council after the incumbent's sudden death, and hinges on the fate of a squalid housing estate. Kept closely under wraps until publication, it hits bookshops on Thursday and is expected to be Britain's top-selling fiction title this year. In the Independent, Boyd Tonkin called it a "song of freedom" after Rowling's seven children's books, which made her the world's first billionaire author. While decrying the novel's "clunkily satirical set-pieces", he said it "picks up passion, verve and even magic" when dealing with its teenage characters. "All the social and hormonal turbulence that the later Potter volumes had to veil in the euphemisms of fantasy appear in plain sight here," he wrote. "The novel builds into a vividly melodramatic climax with these kids at its heart." But the Guardian's reviewer Theo Tait labelled the edgier scenes "superficial excitements", saying the novel created a sense of "slight anti-climax" despite its "richly peopled, densely imagined world". And writing in The Times, Erica Wagner said the book was founded on "the idea of the novel as a force for social good" but could be "a tiny bit dull". For the Telegraph's reviewer, however, a top concern was the risk of the book falling into the wrong hands. "In the coming days, along with thousands of parents around the world," she wrote, "I will have to do something that offends our best instincts: I will try to stop my children reading a book."