Secure Your Copy A Sparrow Falls (Courtney Publication, #3; Courtney Chronological, #16) Developed By Wilbur Smith Accessible As Paper Copy
Sparrow Falls, another gripping installment in Wilbur Smith's Courtney Family Adventure series
Mark Anders grew up on eight thousand acres of African land that bore his family name.
Then he fought in Europe's Great War and, upon returning to his ancestral home, he saw savagery unlike any other.
In Africa, Mark's family estate has been despoiled, His grandfather has died under mysterious circumstances, And he has inherited a murderous enemythe rogue scion of the powerful Courtney clanin an altogether new kind of war.
Now, Mark will make a fateful choice between two women, Journey into the wilderness to uncover his grandfather's fate, Find his way through battles raging between fathers and sons, generals and politicians, and nature and man, In an age of violent conflict, Mark Anders will live or die for justiceand his fight will echo across a country he always loved.
Myth posted review for!
In this, the concluding novel in the Sean Courtney collection, Smith moves the powerful man aside and offers the reader a new focus in the young Mark Anders.
Serving under Courtney in the Great War, Anders survives in the trenches and returns to his family homestead, which has been confiscated and his grandfather murdered.
Learning of the gang behind the acts, Anders discovers that his former General's own son, Dirk Courtney, is the mastermind.
Using this as a pretence for revenge, Anders begins working for General Sean Courtney, first as his assistant and eventually in a position of political patronage as game warden.
At this time, Anders falls in love with the General's daughter, Storm, who has grown up with a silver spoon in her mouth and cannot imagine life with such a commoner.
As Smith builds the novel's narrative, South Africa comes of age under the Smuts Government, where it begins to bulge at the seams after a surge of socialist upheaval.
To quell the workers and the early germination of race clashes, government troops push back the protest, which only delays further action.
Anders finds himself in the middle of this and other key aspects of South African independence as he tries to find his way.
With the chance to eventually face his nemesis, Anders learns of the lengths to which Dirk Courtney will go to get his way, allowing no one to cross him.
As Smith brings the Sean Courtney story to a conclusion, he has only just begun laying the groundwork for the explosive second collection of Courtney novels, in which future generations will surely see the country become cesspool of racism on the African continent.
A mustread novel and series by any curious reader,
Over this short threenovel series, Smith has created the foundation for a wonderful series that places South Africa at its centre.
Written with the mysteries of the continent in mind, Smith is able to use a core group of characters to live within history and yet forge their own lives and weave highly intriguing tales.
His storytelling is second to none and the drama that Smith instills keeps the reader begging for more, Looking only at the first collection, if I were to offer a criticism, it would be that the time period between the books is large and brief narration to weave together the happenings from one book to the other does not adequately suffice.
Readers like myself might enjoy additional novels in the series to flesh out the character arcs summarising their lives from one novel to the next, which are handled in a brief paragraph in Smith's narrative.
A detailed construction could make for new and exciting storylines, if done properly, Smith has me thoroughly hooked and wondering what will come next in the second collection, a multigenerational addition to the Courtney series.
Kudos, Mr. Smith for the foundational work on this wonderful series, Your climactic ending has me wondering what other twists you have in store, However, it is time to diverge and explore the Ballantyne family to see how they differ or intersect the Courtneys, before returning for another round of South Africa's development.
Like/hate the review An evergrowing collection of others appears at:
sitelink wordpress. com/ I love ALL of Wilbur Smith's books, but ofcourse I like some better than others,
This book wasn't in the top echelon of his writing, in my opinion,
The plot is as Wilbur Smithesque as you could want: the grown up estranged son of the powerful and wealthy Sean Courtney returns mysteriously rich and ready to play politics dirty politics, as dirty as necessary.
Being smart, Dirk Courtney gets his minions to get their hands dirty instead of his, Add to the mix Mark Anders, who Sean met in the trenches of WWand treats like the son he never had in Dirk and his beautiful but tempestuous and very proud Storm Courtney with which Mark has an almost starcrossed relationship, and there you have it.
I enjoyed this book, but for anyone who has read an amount of Wilbur Smith books I think they would probably agree with me that his writing noticeably developed over the years.
Worth reading nonetheless.
Following on from Sound of Thunder we follow the Courtney family as they fight their way through the First World War but this time we focus on Mark Anders, the son that Sean Courtney never had but always wanted.
As the fighting comes to end, Mark returns home to find that other members of the Courtney family have destroyed everything he loves, triggering his quest for revenge that leads to his falling in love with the rather spoilt Storm Courtney and places himself in the middle of the South African workers war that leads to the country being turned on its head.
As ever, Smith weaves a superb tale with lots of twists and turns and more near death experiences than I can count, not to mention some seriously twisted family dynamics, the reading of Sean's Last Will and Testament still sticks in my mind, and sets things up beautifully for the next generation of the Courtney family.
Great book and it would have to be because it's overpages, It holds you captive from the first page to the last and has it all, Action, wonderful descriptive, love, a hero to absolutely love, A return to the Courtney series after many years, Wilbur Smith manages to write a sad and actionpacked novel.
A Sparrow Falls is the third novel of the famous Courtney series, But I think this book wasn't as good as compared to the previous two novels, We return to the life of Sean Courtney, along with his merciless son Dirk, and his grownup daughter Storm.
But now there is a new change, A whole new character takes over the book Mark Anders,
"Some say the lion, others say the leopard, But believe me, my boy, when a man looks in the mirror, he sees the most dangerous and merciless killer in all of nature".
I was fine that a new character was introduced, but not by the fact that he is the protagonist.
I mean which series is this, the Courtney series or the Anders series, Also, his story isn't as good as compared to Sean's, He starts by looking out for his land 'Anderland', But then he finds that some people have taken over that land, and now he tries to save it.
Somehow the plot gets him and Sean together many times, making Mark fall in love with Sean's daughter, Storm.
Sean's story was also not a big improvement, He is, his son is evil, his daughter is angry, his wife is happy, and he is sad, Dirk Courtney is as evil as ever, not showing any mercy on whatever comes in his way of success.
His daughter is spoiled, without any humbleness, And Sean is sad about all these things, The fact that bothered me the most is that he is not the protagonist, Mark is, And also, Garrick doesn't even have a role in it,
The plot is not so good, too, It's just like the two main characters are somehow navigating through their lives, and there are some dramatic turns in the way.
I didn't want to continue reading the book when I reached the middle part, but I couldn't just leave it either.
It was only when I came to the ending that generated interest in me, The ending was really sad, and only after finishing the book did I feel glad for not stopping and continuing it.
Seriously, if you want to read this book, you must have unlimited patience,
"Dirk, I have known many men, and not one of them was all good nor completely evil.
They were all combinations of those two elements, good and evil that is until I came to know you.
You are the only man who was evil, evil unrelieved by the slightest shading of good, When at last I was forced to face that fact, I turned my back on you"
My total rating is.
stars, and I'm hoping the next book will be an improvement, An actionpacked thriller from the first chapter to the last which was also with the aid of Wikpedia
and Wikimapia an interesting tour guide to the geographical layout of South Africa and an introduction to the history of that nation in the earlys.
Smith's style reminded me of James Michener's Centenniel in the way he presented the natural landscape through human drama.
Young Mark Anders faces difficulties similar to those of Indiana Jones, and at nearly the same pace, His cohero, General Sean Courtney, is past his prime physically, but is still powerful in the wise exercise of military and political acumen.
It was only after I finished this book that I learned that it was the final episode in a threebook sequence featuring General Courtney, and that this sequence was part of a thirteenbook series featuring the Courtney family.
I look forward to reading more of this series, and though this book stood well on its own, I fear I may have ruined the earlier two books of the sequence by starting with the last.
Smith seems to enjoy describing the gory details of the violent scenes and I think I learned more than I wanted to know about the precise damage done by bullets and other weapons during conflicts both intra and interspecies.
He is also a gifted creator of erotic scenes, but tends to end those scenes suddenly with a corny euphemism.
I had started to think his romantic plot was a bit formulaic, but he managed to dispell that belief before the end of the book.
About ten years after writing The Sound Of Thunder, Smith returns to the Courtney family saga with this book, published in.
We begin again with Sean Courtney four years after the end of The Sound Of Thunder, Now we are in France, in the trenches of World War I, Sean is a general and is on a surprise inspection tour, He meets a young South African sniper named Mark Anders, Sean is interested in seeing how Anders does his job, and stays until our sniper faces off with 'their' sniper.
After this episode, Sean disappears and Mark Anders takes over the book, Now I have to admit I was heartily disappointed in this one, and that is rare for me with a Wilbur Smith story.
But I was expecting to read about the younger generation of Courtneys by now, and I was thrown for a loop when Anders became the main character right off the bat.
Dirk Courtney does feature and he is just as evil as his younger self promised to be in the earlier book, but Michael is mentioned only in passing and it would be a spoiler for The Burning Shore if I say why.
Somehow I could never get too involved in this story, It deals with creating unions, the fight for workers' rights, Bolshevism, and the many other topics that were current after The Great War.
Intense and complex themes, of course, but I simply couldn't focus on them,
After aboutpages I skimmed quickly through the rest and decided to DNF,
Wilbur Smith never disappoints, In thisrd book of the Courtney Series, two Courtney men go to war in France, but only one returns.
The trip home aboard ship turns into a life and death struggle for the newest Courtney and we see parts of Africa I've never even heard of.
All the characters are memorable and I've already started sitelinkThe Burning Shore, Note: If you've never read a Courtney book and want to read them chronologically, books,,andare prequels to the others, just written later.
I had readbooks before I realized this, So start with sitelinkBirds of Prey to begin in thes with the first Courtney, This is bookin Smith's Courtney series, As is typical of the author, this one is set in Africa and contains many, many elements including murder, war, romance, revenge, betrayal, and ultimately makes all of them work in this entertaining story.
Highly recommended. I recently bought this book from Goldsborough Books, It was listed on Amazon, co. uk as the first edition of the title: A Sparrow Falls by Wilbur Smith, It was secondhand and listed as being in good condition, It was meant to also be the first printedition, It was supposed to be a gift for someone, It arrived as a library used book, orange not even yellow pages that's how bad it is and stinking of mold.
It's not the correct edition either, so has a completely different cover and is actually alibrary binding, I'm very disappointed as I requested a refund but then learned I can't take it to a collection point and print off the label as I must ask them via email for postage refund permission This is usually automatic when you purchase something from Amazon and have already paid for postage in order to have it sent to you.
I am not prepared to pay postage again for the privilege of returning it, And there's no way of returning without a printer It feels like this was deliberate, sending me the wrong edition and completely different state of book as to the one listed for sale then making it extremely difficult to return it.
I won't be buying from them again, .