- My Harry Potter Academic Conference talk from 2023.
- The Troubled Blood-Order of the Phoenix parallel noted at the time of publication.
- Irvin Khaytman's essay on the connections between The Ink Black Heart and The Half-Blood Prince
- Beatrice Groves' magazine article on the same topic.
- Connections between The Running Grave and The Deathly Hallows
- Links to dozens of other posts on the topic.
The thematic similarities between the first seven Strike books and the Harry Potter series makes me think it is highly likely that, as reported by UK Sunday Times Arts editor Richard Brooks in February 2014, Rowling initially planned the Strike series as seven books. The Times was, after all, the paper that used forensic literary analysis to document similarities between Cuckoo's Calling and other Rowling works, and it seems unlikely they would publish that claim unless they had reason to believe it was true, although their source of information may have been out of date Galbraith immediately denied that seven books were planned and by July 2014, announced there would be more than seven books, perhaps even an open-ended series. By April 2023, the author had decided the series would be complete at ten. The simplest explanation is, after being outed much sooner than planned, "Galbraith" rethought the series plan. And, as we well know, whether writing as Rowling or Galbraith, this author is selective about how much of the planning process is shared.
So, is there any point in considering the Parallel Series Hypothesis, now that we've hit #8 in the Strike Series? Find out after the jump.