AS THE clock struck midnight on Friday, June 15, thousands of Harry Potter fans rushed out to get their hands on the most-eagerly awaited book of the year.

JK Rowling's latest addition, Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince, was finally released to her adoring fans at exactly one minute past midnight where scenes depicting fans queuing outside bookshops were mirrored all around the world.

The sixth book about the adventures of boy wizard Harry Potter was kept under lock and key until its official release date at the weekend and has already broken sales records on both sides of the Atlantic.

Ottakar's bookshop in High Wycombe laid on a feast of Harry Potter games and activities for the hundreds of fans who queued from 11.30pm.

Andrew Feneley, branch manager at the White Hart Street store, says: "The midnight opening was fantastic. Outside of the shop we had eight jugglers performing for the crowd.

"Inside for children, we had a midnight feast and some puzzles including Harry Potter sudoku and for the adults we had some champagne.

"The response bettered all of our expectations with a crowd in excess of 200 people."

The fun continued at the store well into Saturday as more fans, children and adult alike, came in their hundreds to snap up copies of the book.

Andrew adds: "I still don't know the full sales figures on the day as we are still adding in copies from reservations taken before the day and copies sold at the Great Missenden show but it seems to be that the book performed very much to our expectations."

Other bookshops around the county, which also had late night openings to meet the demands of the public, reported similar scenes.

Jonathan Stevens, manager of Waterstones in Aylesbury, says: "We had about 50 people queuing outside from 11.30pm and people were queueing around the shop.

"We had one of our members of staff doing her own quiz where she was asking people Harry Potter questions and she handed out Harry Potter crosswords and puzzles to do while they waited.

"The interest in the book has been more than the last one and the sales exceeded our expectations but we had plenty of copies in stock."

JK Rowling is believed to have sold more than two million copies of Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince on the first day alone in the UK, which exceeded sales of her previous book Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which sold more than 1.7 million copies on its opening day.