Claire Ladds

Crime and suspense author

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Mystery and Thriller FREE books!

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I have another book promotion for you today. If you enjoy mysteries and thrillers, then you’ll love this one! There are loads of ebooks full of intriguing mystery, thrills and spills from a variety of authors in this giveaway.

This Mystery and Thriller promotion runs for the entire month of February, so feel free to grab the FREE books that you fancy, then head back to see if there’s anything else that catches your eye. You’ve got until February 28th to help yourself!

Among the free books in this promotion is the novella in my Darker Minds Crime and Suspense series, Beneath the Flesh. It is exclusive to my Readers’ Club, and you can’t buy it anywhere. If you’d like it, especially if you’re starting to collect all the books in the series, do please grab your copy.

Happy downloading and happy reading! 😊

TAKE ME TO THE MYSTERY AND THRILLER GIVEAWAY

If you’d just like to head straight to my Readers’ Club and sign up (and get your copy of Beneath the Flesh as a welcome gift), you can find it here.

Revenge: Grab your FREE books (1-15 Feb)

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This month I have three (yes, three!) opportunities for you to download some extra reading to your devices. And all for FREE!

The first promotion I’m sharing with you is the Revenge giveaway (1-15 Feb only). If you’re looking for a crime read with some kind of payback for dirty deeds done, then this one could be for you. There are loads of ebooks by a myriad of authors for you to choose from, including books containing gritty crime, assassins, and all sorts of revenge. Pick as many as you want – and come back for more, if you’d like!

You’ll also find Beneath the Flesh, a novella in my Darker Minds Crime and Suspense series, among the books here. You can’t get hold of this book except as a member of my Readers’ Club and/or through promotions like this, so if you’d like a copy please do help yourself!

Happy downloading and happy reading! 😊

TAKE ME TO THE REVENGE GIVEAWAY

If you’d like to head straight over to sign up to my Readers’ Club and get Beneath the Flesh as a welcome gift, you can do it here.

Show Me Dead now available in e-book, paperback and hardback!

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I’m thrilled to tell you that Show Me Dead is now available in three formats. If you read (as opposed to listen to) your books, then you can now find a format for you!

Show Me Dead is available to read on all Kindle devices and the Kindle app, in paperback, and also in hardback. So, whether you’re happy reading on-screen, or whether you love the feel of a physical book in your hand, I’ve got you covered. Not only that, but if you’ve got a Kindle Unlimited subscription, you can read it for FREE. 😊

If you’ve not yet delved into what the book is about, then let me help you:

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THE DEEPER YOU GO, THE DARKER YOU GET. THE STAGE IS SET…

Ripped away from her circus family and kidnapped, Angel finds herself the unwilling ‘guest’ in a dilapidated theatre, belonging to a man who calls himself the Puppet Master.

She’s not the only captive, either. All of the broken and terrified people below ground are forced to perform for a very darkly discerning audience.

When performers begin to go missing, no one knows why, or who will be next. Fear is growing and Angel intends to ensure one thing – that it won’t be her. What is happening here? Just who is the Puppet Master, and what does he want with her? Angel may well wish that she’d never found out. But is he really the one pulling the strings?

To save them all and get to the truth, Angel has to perform the darkest show of all. But truth comes at a price. And someone will pay…

This book is part of the Darker Minds crime and suspense thriller series: Dark minds are at work. Sometimes it takes a darker one to stop them.

Perfect for readers of Martin Edwards, Joanna Penn, Mark Tilbury, Sarah Pearse, Helen Phifer, and those who like their dark crime mixed with a good dose of suspense.

~

I’ve had some truly lovely comments about the book, the story itself, and my writing. I really do appreciate every single one. I’ve even had several people tell me they could imagine it as a film. When i wrote it, I did so very much with the visual aspect in mind – and how brilliant would it be to have a book made into a film?! (If you know any directors who work for Netflix or who produce Amazon Originals, feel free to send them my way! 😁).

If you’d like to take a look at Show Me Dead, and grab yourself a copy, then the button below will take you straight to the book on your Amazon store.

Buy Show Me Dead

Happy reading!

Claire 😊

Show Me Dead: A big THANK YOU! 😊

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I would like to say a massive thank you to everyone who has helped to make the release of Show me Dead as brilliant an experience as it has been.

Writers often do much of their work alone – the very nature of having to focus on the words you’re writing or editing means that’s par for the course – but it takes all sorts of people to help get a book launched. Whether you are someone who has bought the book, or downloaded it to read it in Kindle Unlimited, or whether you liked and shared my social media posts as I wittered on about how excited I was about this book (and I’m still excited because I love the story!), or whether you told someone else about Show Me Dead, or whether you’ve managed to do something else to spread the word about my book launch, I cannot thank you enough. You are AMAZING!

I’ve had some really flattering and humbling conversations with readers this week, who have contacted me and said some lovely things about this book and my writing itself. I honestly can’t thank you enough. Putting a book out into the world can feel scary because you never know for sure if it’s going to resonate with readers, or whether they’re going to enjoy it.

I would like to give a special shout-out to my fabulous cover designer, Emmy Ellis, who has done a superb job of making the covers in the Darker Minds Crime and Suspense series truly gorgeous. Also, it’s a real privilege to have author friends and colleagues who are always willing to listen to another writer talking ‘shop’. Jay Nadal and Meg Jolly have encouraged me so much in the last few months. If you ever want to read police procedurals, both of them write great ones!

If you haven’t got your copy of Show Me Dead yet, you can grab it for a very limited time for 99p/c, or get it with your Kindle Unlimited subscription and read for FREE.

Download Show Me Dead
Show Me Dead – FREE to read in Kindle Unlimited

Would you like to hear more from me? Join my Readers’ Club and get exclusive gifts and bonus content. You’ll also get a FREE copy of Beneath the Flesh, a Darker Minds Crime and Suspense novella.

Yes, I’d like to join the Reader’s Club

Show Me Dead – OUT NOW on Amazon!

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This is a very exciting day for me because it’s LAUNCH DAY for Show Me Dead!

I am absolutely thrilled to say that Show Me Dead is now available to buy from Amazon. And if you’re a Kindle Unlimited subscriber, you can download and read the book FREE as part of your subscription – and I’d love it very much if you do! 😁

If you pre-ordered the book, then it should already have landed on your device. You may even have already started reading it, which is fantastic.

Show Me Dead is the first book I’ve written in my new Darker Minds series. Each book in the series is a standalone novel, linked by a premise:

Dark minds are at work. Sometimes it takes a darker one to stop them…

Here’s a bit about Show Me Dead, in case you’ve not yet come across it.

THE DEEPER YOU GO, THE DARKER YOU GET. THE STAGE IS SET…

Ripped away from her circus family and kidnapped, Angel finds herself the unwilling ‘guest’ in a dilapidated theatre, belonging to a man who calls himself the Puppet Master.

She’s not the only captive, either. All of the broken and terrified people below ground are forced to perform for a very darkly discerning audience.

When performers begin to go missing, no one knows why, or who will be next. Fear is growing and Angel intends to ensure one thing – that it won’t be her. What is happening here? Just who is the Puppet Master, and what does he want with her? Angel may well wish that she’d never found out. But is he really the one pulling the strings?

To save them all and get to the truth, Angel has to perform the darkest show of all. But truth comes at a price. And someone will pay…

You can find, buy, and download to read as a Kindle Unlimited book by clicking the button below:

BUY OR DOWNLOAD SHOW ME DEAD

I really hope you love reading Show me Dead. I have had such an amazing time writing it, and loved every second of creating the darkness inside the main characters. I would love to know what you think of Angel and of the Puppet Master – and which one you found yourself drawn to most. Do feel free to contact me and let me know.

To all my readers – thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for helping my launch day be fantastic. If you’ve bought or downloaded my book, that’s just wonderful. If my words thrill you, touch you, scare you, or make you want to read more books, then I can’t ask for more than that. I write because I love it, and if I can bring you along for the ride, then it’s literally the most fantastic feeling ever!

Show Me Dead by Claire Ladds

My 2022 Author Goals, and 2021 Writing Year in Review

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It’s taken me a little while to write this post. I promised I would write an update on the goals I set at the beginning of 2021 – although, to be honest, I almost didn’t. It wasn’t a great year, by any means, for so many different reasons (pandemic included). I’d set lofty goals and they were always going to be tough to achieve, but they gave me something to aim for. When you read what they were, below, you’ll see what I mean – and I’ll state up front that I definitely didn’t get anywhere near achieving them.

It’s taken me quite a while to mull this over and decide what kinds of goals I want to set myself in 2022. This year, I’ve decided to be a bit kinder to myself, try to stay more focused, and to set realistic, achievable goals. I also have two ‘watchwords’ for the year: creation, and growth. My overarching goal is to develop more of everything in my author business, from books in my back catalogue, to formats for my work, to sales, readers, and reading and writing connections (some of whom might become friends – I love it when that happens!).

So. Let me start with 2021, and report back (as promised) on what I did – and didn’t get done:

[Read more…] about My 2022 Author Goals, and 2021 Writing Year in Review