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Claire Ladds

Crime and suspense author

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psychological suspense

Love Suspense? PRE-ORDER Hers or Mine: a Psychological Suspense Thriller

11th March 2023 by claireladds Leave a Comment

Do you love suspense books? Then you’re in the right place. I am thrilled to let you know that you can now pre-order the e-book of my psychological suspense thriller, Hers or Mine.

Here’s the book description:

***

To the neighbours, Lucy and Andy are an ordinary couple with good jobs and a quiet life. But they’re hiding a dark secret. And it’s tearing them apart.

Seven years ago, you took my life away. And I want it back.

Life as Andy’s wife isn’t what Lucy thought it would be. Andy has become obsessive. It’s as if she’s a prisoner. Her business will fall apart if she doesn’t do something. Then a leaflet arrives for a hotel designed for struggling creatives. Going there will solve all her problems.
Andy has issues of his own: an affair he’s trying to keep under control, Lucy’s increased problematic behaviour, and the guilty knowledge of what he did seven years before.

The time is coming. The plan is in place. And you’ll be here soon.

Letting Lucy go off alone might have been really stupid. Can she keep the secret safe? How dangerous is Lucy’s behaviour? When Andy gets a disturbing phone call from his wife, he’s determined to go and get her back.
But at the hotel, everyone is hiding secrets and telling lies. And someone has murder in mind.

No one knows you’re here. No one knows who you really are. And no one will know if you disappear forever…

***

Are you getting a tingle up your spine at the thought of what might go on at the creative retreat? Are your already on the edge of your seat, wondering just exactly what Lucy and Andy are hiding and what will happen if their secret is discovered? Oh yes, and just exactly who is the mysterious owner of the hotel for creative lost souls – and what does she want with Lucy and Andy? Pre-order your copy of Hers or Mine, get the book delivered to your e-reader as soon as it releases, and you’ll be in suspense no longer!

Pre-order Hers or Mine on Amazon

Can’t wait for my next book? Have you read my other suspense books?

Find them all on Amazon

Sign up to my Readers’ Club and receive an e-book copy of my psychological suspense novella, Beneath the Flesh FREE.

Learn more about the Readers’ Club…

Filed Under: All News, News Tagged With: Hers or Mine, pre-order, psychological suspense, psychological thriller, suspense fiction, suspense thriller

Beneath the Flesh: a FREE Darker Minds e-book when you join my Readers’ Club – Read an Extract (Do You Love Prologues?, Part 5)

4th March 2023 by claireladds Leave a Comment

Welcome to the fifth and final part of my mini-series, touting my love for writing prologues!

Today’s extract is quite a long one, as the prologue itself is split between the viewpoints of two main characters, from opposing backgrounds and with vastly different character traits. Prologues can, most definitely, be used to emphasise what the characters are like. I don’t think it’s easy (or necessarily helpful to the book) to use a prologue only for this purpose because the whole book itself, chapter by chapter, should be doing this anyway. But what the prologue can do is show how a character behaves and set up the reader’s expectation for the ways they might react when problems begin to be thrown at them – or, in my book’s case, probably murder…

The extract I have for you today is from Beneath the Flesh. This is, at the time of writing, the book I offer exclusively as a FREE gift to readers who sign up for my Readers’ Club emails. As you’ve probably gathered, the prologue gives the reader a massive insight into the main characters of the book. It also sets up an incident (often called the inciting incident) which directly leads to everything that happens in the main story. Without it, the rest of the action, suspicions and skulduggery would have nothing to hang on. Look at this prologue at a very wordy coat hanger, if you want!

There you have it – the final part of my mini-series showing you how much I love prologues and how I use them. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading the extracts. If you want to read more of my work, you’ll find details of all my books on this website and also on many e-book stores.

Please note that, as my extracts are crime-related books or dark fiction of some kind, they are suitable for an adult readership. Please read responsibly.

Happy reading!

Claire

P.S. The one obvious profanity is replaced with **** for the purposes of this extract.

[Read more…] about Beneath the Flesh: a FREE Darker Minds e-book when you join my Readers’ Club – Read an Extract (Do You Love Prologues?, Part 5)

Filed Under: All News, Extracts, News Tagged With: crime fiction, Darker Minds Crime and Suspense, free read, novella, psychological suspense, psychological thriller, Readers Club, suspense fiction

No Deadlier Time: Read an Extract (Do You Love Prologues?, Part 3)

18th February 2023 by claireladds Leave a Comment

Welcome back, to part three of my mini-series on my love for prologues. And, you know, I really do love them! I have realised that, to date, all of my novels have some form of prologue, although not all of them are labelled as such.

I love planting seeds (and definitely not the gardening kind – my dad could tell you about my efforts from a very young age at how adept I clearly was, even then, at destroying the planting!). The seeds contained in a prologue could, potentially, make or break a reader’s full experience of the story – or the story that I, as author, have imagined you will experience, that I want you to engage with and think about, long after you’ve read the book.

As I said in Part 1 of this mini-series on prologues, there are various reasons for using a prologue in a story, but the most important thing to remember as a writer is that it has to do something. It’s not just a random scene that is disconnected from the story. Quite the opposite – it’s intrinsic to the story in some way. Without it, it’s possible that there are deeper elements to the narrative, or potentially even basic and important ones, that the reader would miss out on if the prologue wasn’t there.

If you’ve read any of my books, or read the extracts in the other posts in this mini-series, you may have realised I have often used the prologue as a device to point the reader to something that happened at some time before the book ‘proper’ gets started. In the extract from The Secrets That Haunt Us, for instance, the letters directly impact the ‘present’ of the story. Because of those letters, two characters have already set their course of action for the story, and the prologue goes some way to explain why, although the full impact of those letters at the beginning is fully and tragically clear until much later on. In the extract from That Killer Image, an event in the villain’s past leads to his atrocity later in life – and here I also give the reader a sneak peek into the truly creepy, split-second, psychological moment that follows him through the entire novel.

Today’s extract is the prologue from No Deadlier Time. This book is a suspense thriller which borders on (or for some readers, is) also psychological horror. Again, because I just can’t help myself it seems, this reveals a past event which impacts so much more than the main characters of the story. It foreshadows what might happen, should Harry, a boy in this prologue, follow in his father’s footsteps once he’s older. But does he? You won’t know unless you read the book (no spoilers here!). It also introduces another character who appears in a minor role here, yet is embroiled in this family’s story in ways you can’t possibly imagine. Or can you..?

Please note that, as my extracts are crime-related books or dark fiction of some kind, they are suitable for an adult readership. Please read responsibly.

Happy reading!

Claire

[Read more…] about No Deadlier Time: Read an Extract (Do You Love Prologues?, Part 3)

Filed Under: All News, Extracts, News Tagged With: Claire Ladds Books, crime and mystery fiction, crime fiction, psychological horror, psychological suspense, psychological thriller, read an extract, suspense fiction

That Killer Image OUT NOW!

11th April 2022 by claireladds

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!

BUY THAT KILLER IMAGE
That Killer Image by Claire Ladds

Filed Under: Darker Minds Crime and Suspense, My books, News Tagged With: crime fiction, Darker Minds Crime and Suspense, new release, psychological suspense, suspense fiction, That Killer Image

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