Newsmakers

LONDON: Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling married her partner Neil Murray in a secret Boxing Day ceremony, a spokeswoman for the British writer confirmed Saturday.

The couple married at a private ceremony at their home in Scotland, the spokeswoman said.

According to the News of the World tabloid newspaper, the couple exchanged vows watched by just a few close relatives.

"J.K. Rowling and Neil Murray were married privately on December 26 at their house in Perthshire," the spokeswoman told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

"Their immediate family attended the wedding," she added.

Rowling's Potter books follow the exploits of a young English boy who discovers he inherited magical powers from his parents, a pair of wizards killed by a powerful enemy. He's invited to become a student at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Her first book "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" was recently released as a film, smashing box office records in Britain and the United States, where it is titled "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."

The spokeswoman declined to comment on whether the author would be known as J.K. Murray when the fifth Harry Potter book is published next year.

Rowling and Murray, who is an anesthetist, met in Edinburgh, Scotland a little more than a year ago. Her first marriage ended in divorce and it was as a single mother, bringing up her daughter Jessica, that Rowling began to write the best-selling books in Edinburgh.