The Casual Vacancy was the first J.K. Rowling book published after the original seven-book Harry Potter series ended.
Little, Brown published the novel in 2012. It is an adult contemporary novel about a fictional English community called Pagford, where a vacancy on the local parish council triggers political conflict and exposes tensions involving class, poverty, addiction, and family life. It contains no wizarding setting or magical plot.
The seventh Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, appeared in 2007. The five-year gap made The Casual Vacancy a major literary event because it showed Rowling moving into a completely different genre and audience. The book was published under her familiar J.K. Rowling name rather than her later crime-fiction pseudonym.
The Cormoran Strike series began with The Cuckoo's Calling in 2013, so it came after The Casual Vacancy. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was first a 2001 companion book and later became a 2016 film, making it a different kind of publication.