2pm update

Early reviews smash Potter embargo

Boxes of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Not any more ... a sealed box of Harry Potter books awaits despatch. Photograph: David Calvert/AP

With only two days to go before the publication of the seventh and final instalment of JK Rowling's Harry Potter series, both the New York Times and the Baltimore Sun have broken one of the most stringent embargos of recent times and published a review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a move which left JK Rowling "staggered".

After reading a copy "purchased at a New York City store yesterday", one of America's most influential literary critics, Michiko Kakutani, hails the volume in the New York Times as a dose of "good old-fashioned closure".

Bloomsbury, which publishes the multimillion pound series in the UK, has hit back, saying in a statement that it was "extremely dismayed" to learn of early sales, claiming the "Potter embargo holds", and casting doubt on the authenticity of spoilers published yesterday on the internet.

"The release date and time embargo of 00.01AM BST on Saturday July 21 is being enforced unflinchingly," the statement continues, "and without exception by the publishers."

Readers looking for clues to the outcome of the popular children's serial would find little more than hints in the New York Times review. According to Kakutani, Rowling has not chosen to indulge in fancy narrative experimentation, instead opting for an epic confrontation and a straightforward epilogue laying out the characters' fates.

"Getting to the finish line is not seamless" she continues, "but the overall conclusion and its determination of the main characters' storylines possess a convincing inevitability that make some of the prepublication speculation seem curiously blinkered in retrospect."

While the review is not uniformly positive, tributes to Rowling's "astonishingly limber voice" and "magpie talent" suggest that fans of the schoolboy wizard's adventures will not be disappointed.

Over at the Baltimore Sun, Mary Carole McCauley agrees that the ending "seems inevitable", though she complains of unanswered questions for "longtime fans", and suggests that book seven "lacks much of the charm and humour that distinguished the earlier novels".

These latest breaches of the embargo come after a series of websites claimed to have posted photographs of the book, and online filesharing networks offered downloadable files containing the full text of the novel.

The latest developments have surprised and disappointed JK Rowling.

"I am staggered that some American newspapers have decided to publish purported spoilers in the form of reviews in complete disregard of the wishes of literally millions of readers, particularly children, who wanted to reach Harry's final destination by themselves, in their own time," she said. "I am incredibly grateful to all those newspapers, booksellers and others who have chosen not to attempt to spoil Harry's last adventure for fans."

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