Harry Potter and his friends will make their final bow this year as the last of the series of J.K. Rowling's best-selling novel is set to be released on July 21. Kudos to Rowling for creating an international feat, that of writing seven famous and mega-selling Harry Potter books in a span of ten years. Her books bridged the generation gap as both kids and adults were magnetized to the young wizard boy and the mysteries that surrounded his life.



The last book ?Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows? is something to look forward to by fans as the story gets more thrilling with two characters to be killed in the end. Readers have already expressed mixed emotions upon the announcement of Rowling on her website. The author, during a reading last summer at New York's Radio City Music Hall, revealed that she's not always happy killing her characters including the one who died at the end of Book 6 (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince). However, she already had that in mind for several years prior to her writing the book. ?I'd already done my grieving when I actually came to write it,? Rowling said.

Book 7 will be sold $5 higher than Book 6 at $34.99. U.S. publisher Scholastic Inc. said the price increase is due to the rise in the costs of production, paper, trucking, gas and security. These factors have been very vital in ensuring that all readers enjoy their well-loved book during release time. It's not clear though how many pages it will have but speculations are strong it will either equal or exceed the page length of the previous books at more than 600 pages. Online retailer Amazon.com Inc. has also announced a discounted price for the book at $18.89, 46 percent cheaper than the suggested cover price. It added that first-day advance orders for the last book were 547 percent more than the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince which had 1.5 million pre-orders. Book 6 was released in July 2005.

Meanwhile, a deluxe edition of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows with a regular price tag of $65 has also topped the list of Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com. The book is at number two outselling a diet book and a memoir endorsed by talk show host Oprah Winfrey. Previously, some 100,000 copies of a similar edition of Book 6 were sold, according to Scholastic Inc. It included a 32-page insert of art and illustrations, a full-cloth case book, blind-stamped on front and back cover with the spine being foil-stamped.

J.K. Rowling completed the last Harry Potter book on January 11, 2007 at the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh particularly at Room 652. This, according to a note she scribbled using a black marker on the back of a marble bust in the five-star hotel. Hotel sources were surprised over the discovery saying it's the first time a celebrity guest in their hotel left a note on an ornament. It seems that Rowling is endeared to Edinburgh where she also wrote the first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, notably in cafes Nicholson's and The Elephant House. Rowling's representative has confirmed that the author had been writing the last part of her internationally-acclaimed novel in Balmoral Hotel.

Since the first introduction of the Harry Potter series ten years ago, more than 325 million copies of the books in 64 languages have been sold while four box-office movies have been produced. The fifth sequel ?Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix? is set to be released on July 13.