Piccadilly Press has acquired the rights to three middle-grade books from the bestselling adventure fiction writer, Wilbur Smith. The new series, The Jack Courtney Adventures, will feature the youngest member of the Courtney family, Jack, and his two friends, the smart and sharp Amelia, and loyal Xander. The books will be set in the modern day, with the first novel, Cloudburst, based in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Wilbur Smith’s Courtney Series is the longest-running in publishing history. The first in the series, When the Lion Feeds, was published in 1964, with the latest novel, King of Kings, published in April 2019. His novels have sold over 130 million copies worldwide.

On the new series, Wilbur Smith said, ‘My readers have been asking me what the Courtney family are up to in our turbulent times. For me the best way to explore their legacy was to see how their teenage children are caught between those Courtneys trying to save Africa from ecological catastrophe and those trying to pick it clean for profit and personal enrichment.’

The Jack Courtney Adventures will be co-written by author Christopher Wakling.

Wakling is a novelist and travel writer whose previous books include On Cape Three Points, What I Did and Escape and Evasion.

On the opportunity, Wakling stated, ‘Wilbur Smith’s epic adventure stories have been a publishing phenomenon since I was a boy. This is a fantastic opportunity to help reimagine them for a younger audience and introduce the Courtney dynasty to a new generation of readers.’