Books: When the Lion Feeds, A Sparrow Falls, The Burning Shore, The Sound of Thunder,
Location: Natal
The senior twin of Garrick, Sean is the physical opposite of his brother. As a teenager he is the taller of the two by four inches and twenty pounds heavier, with black hair and blue eyes. He is young, tanned and glowing with vitality. Sean’s childhood is dominated by the guilt he feels over a lifelong injury his twin, Garrick, suffers during an accident.
When he leaves school he becomes an invaluable paid hand on the farm until the call – up to fight in the Zulu Wars of 1879. There he fights on the front lines of the British guides, then as a leader of a commando. He is witness to the massacre at Isandlwana.
After the war, Sean becomes a success during the gold rush at Witswatersrand in Johannesburg, though he eventually loses his fortune to his business rival, Hradsky. He then travels to Bushveld, where he meets his wife, Katrina Leroux, and the two have a son, Dirk Courtney.
Many years after Katrina’s death, Sean falls for Ruth Friedman, who is married to his friend – the soldier Saul Friedman. The two begin an affair and Ruth gives birth to their daughter, Storm Courtney. After Saul dies during the war, Sean and Ruth marry.
Parents: Waite Courtney - Alice Courtney
Children:
Storm Courtney (nee Friedman)
- Dirk Courtney
- Captain Michael Courtney DFC
Other Relatives: Brother to Garrick Courtney, Son of Waite Courtney
''Something always dies when the lion feeds and yet there is meat for those that follow him.' The lion is Sean, hero of this tremendous drama of the men who took possession of South Africa in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.'
'Sean Courtney, who made and lost £5 million on the goldfields of the Witwatersrand and fought his way through the bloody battlefields of the Anglo-Boer War, now makes his final appearance as soldier, statesman and power in the land.'
'The Burning Shore, the odyssey of a beautiful young woman of aristocratic birth, Centaine de Thiry, in search of love and fortune – a monumental journey of mystery and discovery.'
'The Sound of Thunder
'The game was war. The prize was a land. The penalty of defeat was death. . .' The Sound of Thunder is an epic of the Anglo-Boer War and the peace which followed.'
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