Claire Ladds

Crime and suspense author

My books

That Killer Image OUT NOW!

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I am delighted to announce that my new suspense novel, That Killer Image is OUT NOW!

Three people. One killer. And a picture that someone will die for.

When Vicky meets Anthony, she sees him as a happy distraction from her claustrophobic relationship with her housemate and self-appointed guardian, Fran.

Anthony already knows Vicky because he has been following her every move. She is perfect for what he needs – a model for the ultimate photo of his life’s work – and he will do anything it takes to get that shot.

But Fran is not so easy to get rid of. Haunted by the disappearance of her sister, and blaming herself, she is desperate not to make the same mistakes again with Vicky. And when push really comes to shove, she has other ideas about that killer image.

Beneath obsession lies something more deadly…

You can buy the e-book of That Killer Image from a variety of bookstores, and find it in subscriptions, such as Kobo Plus and Scribd. You can also order it from your library, including (excitingly) through Borrow Box! The paperback and hardback are coming soon…

Thank you so much to everyone who pre-ordered a copy. Your support really does mean the world to me. It was fantastic to wake up to find that the book had already landed on the devices of readers in different countries, and that it had been bought it from a variety of retailers.

If you haven’t got your copy yet, you can find it at your preferred retailer using the link below. I hope you enjoy reading That Killer Image!

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That Killer Image by Claire Ladds

Backstory: plotting and planning vengeance

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Somewhere, hiding among the pages of every book, there is a backstory, a story that happened to the characters before the book you read actually begins on the page. It’s the characters’ personal histories, if you like: things that happened to them, memories they have, people they’ve met, events that shaped them into the person you see on the page.

I want to share with you a small piece of the backstory for The Secrets That Haunt Us. It occurs right at the beginning of the book, and takes the shape of five letters, sent to two different members of the same family – mother, Emmeline, and daughter, Julia. These letters, sent months before the book ‘proper’ begins, gives the reader an inkling that all is not only not well at home as the book gets started, but that clearly there have been events in the past which have led to the letter-writing of Alex, a man who is a most unpleasant man indeed. Vengeance has been plotted with malice and a great deal of forethought, and he intends to execute his plans for betrayals and secrets long since past.

But is he the only villain of the piece? The Secrets That Haunt Us blurs the lines between what we would automatically consider ‘good’ and ‘bad, or ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. When I wrote it, I often wondered what courses of action I would have taken, had I been in the various characters’ shoes. And the question will probably haunt me for a very long time.

I hope these five letters intrigue you into wanting to know what could have prompted Alex to plot and plan his own very particular type of vengeance – and what happens once his plans have been set in motion!

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Kobo Long Weekend Sale: Baby up the Chimney for 0.99

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https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/baby-up-the-chimney

I’m thrilled to tell you that my historical crime novel, Baby up the Chimney, is in Kobo’s long weekend sale. The sale starts today and finishes on the 15th February (next Monday). Right now UK, Canada and US-based readers can grab the ebook for 0.99. That’s a whopping amount (about 75%) off the usual price of the e-book.

I hadn’t realised that this weekend’s sale would also include UK readers as well as Canadian and US readers, so if you’re in the UK, do please feel free to take up the opportunity to grab a copy at this rock-bottom price while you’ve got the chance! If you’re not a Kobo reader, however, read on because I have a “tester” freebie for you.

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Release Day for Baby up the Chimney!

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It’s release day – finally – for Baby up the Chimney, and I couldn’t be more excited!

This novel has been a long time coming, beginning as a short story in 2010, developing into an unwieldy monster of a first draft by the end of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) by 2014, and eventually turning into the book I am incredibly proud of today.

My ARC (Advance Reader Copy) readers gave me some fabulous feedback, which was enough to make me realise I’d done the right thing in completing this book. Then people started pre-ordering, and today readers have already purchased. Thank you SO much to anyone who has. I find it an immense honour and extremely humbling that someone wants to part with their cash to read my work, and I know that my feelings about that will never change!

In case you don’t know what the book is about, here’s the blurb:

Baby up the Chimney - an historical novel by Claire Ladds
Baby up the Chimney by Claire Ladds

One day. That’s all it takes for four lives to be changed forever.

London, 6th March 1971. Women pour into London to take to the streets in solidarity for equal pay and equal rights. But while public spectacle and a friendly call to arms pervades the day, in private, one family is about to find that everything they thought was the truth about their loved ones has the potential to blow their world apart. And one man, back from the dead, has unfinished business with them…

A novel of dark secrets, lies, betrayal and vengeance, in which the shadows of history, haunting memories and the truths they dare not tell come back to try and destroy them.

When the truth is not what you thought it was, do you ignore it? Do you try to rewrite history to protect those you love? Or do you seek revenge?

You can purchase Baby up the Chimney from the following stores:

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Amazon worldwide

Kobo

Apple

Nook

All other stores

Add it to your Goodreads ‘Want to Read’ list

See it on BookBub

If you’d like to read more about my inspiration for this book, the writing processes, and all sorts of other little revelations – including how the Brontës made their way into the novel, I visited the Auto.erraticism blog earlier today to discuss it. You can read the post here.

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Writing what you know (Part 2)

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I can’t believe that the release of my novel, Baby up the Chimney, is only a week away! It’s taken ten years, since I first wrote a short story with the same name, to get this book onto the shelves of Amazon, Kobo, Apple, Barnes & Noble and lots of other stores. I don’t mean that I’ve been writing the same book incessantly, squirrelled away like a little hermit (and I say ‘little’ because I just about scrape five feet tall on a good day!). No, the original version of this book was originally written a number of years ago, although it has changed a lot since that initial draft.

I almost couldn’t explain it, even to myself, but this book became immensely personal in many ways. I obsessed over it for years, nothing I wrote made me feel like it was good enough, and I put it down and restarted it half a dozen times before biting the bullet the year, ripping it apart and rebuilding it, chapter by chapter. And then it dawned on me what the problem had been: it had begun to incorporate all sorts of things that meant a great deal to me, or I had experienced in some way, big and small, even though I fictionalised each one and placed them in the hands of completely fictional characters. And if you read the book, you’ll probably be very glad that they are fictional.

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