Candy Jar Books is set to release its second book in the fourth series of the Lethbridge-Stewart books, The Daughters of Earth, in late June. These are the stories of the beloved Brigadier from Doctor Who, before he was the man we know and love from TV and this story will see Lethbridge-Stewart’s fiancee, Sally, take a more central role in the story, in what will prove to be something of a game-changer for the series as a whole.
‘To celebrate Lethbridge-Stewart’s birthday, a romantic weekend is planned for him and Sally Wright in a remote cottage in the Scottish Highlands. Unfortunately for Sally, freak weather causes her to crash her car.
Lethbridge-Stewart, meanwhile, is in Cairngorm investigating UFO sightings with Anne Travers and Lieutenant Bishop. Elsewhere, the Daughters of Earth, a women-only peace movement, are making waves in the political world.
But just who is their enigmatic leader? And what links the Daughters with the events of Cairngorm and Sally’s accident?’
This is writer Sarah Groenewegen’s first novel though not her first foray into Doctor who, nor the Lethbridge-Steward books. She had previously written the well-received short story ‘The Lock-In’, in 2106. Outside of the Lethbridge Stewart range she wrote for the Doctor Who Short Trips collections including stories, ‘Virgin Lands’, ‘Hymn of the City’ and ‘The Bushranger’s Story’.
Groenewegen says about Lethbridge-Stewarts fiance, “I wanted to explore the reasons for why she signed up, her ideals of duty in the face of the adventures they all share. Her relationship with the Brigadier, especially now they work together. Then there’s her interest in a newly emerging women’s lib movement arguing for peaceful solutions to mankind’s many problems – the Daughters of Earth.”
In regards to recreating the past contrasting present day in ‘The Daughters of Earth’ Groenewegen says “I had terrific fun creating a late-’60s peace movement led and run solely by women. While their politics are very much rooted in the start of women’s lib – the generation before the women of Greenham Common, and the grand-generation of the women now running the resistance against current right-wing authoritarianism – there are echoes of what’s happening now and how women organise. The intersections of class, race, outsiders versus those within the establishment – how prone they are to infiltration. I wrote the book during the US presidential elections, which kept being a touchstone to how far women have come to be treated as human beings with agency and a reminder as to how quickly reactionary politics can assert itself.”
Cover art is provided by series regular, artist Adrian Salmon. Salmon says. “My initial idea was to confine all the various visual ideas within the overall shape of the Daughters of Earth’ house. However, after submitting my rough it was brought to my attention that the ‘house style’ for the Lethbridge-Stewart main range is a circular motif, which I had inadvertently created with my cover for Mutually Assured Domination in 2015. How ironic! I dropped the house shape into a circle allowing parts to break out for visual punch.”
To top it off, there is a foreward by Una McCormack, the popular Doctor Who, and Star Trek writer.
The Daughters of Earth is available for pre-order now, for £8.99 (+ p&p). You can pre-order it individually or as part of the discounted UK bundle (which includes the novels Night of the Intelligence by Andy Frankham-Allen, and The Dreamer’s Lament by Benjamin Buford-Jones) for only £26.25 (including postage), saving £9.72, or an international bundle for only £45.00 (including postage), saving £5.97. Or, you can buy it as part of our yearly subscription offer. Order early to avoid disappointment.
