After 21 years hidden away as the secret love child of President François Mitterrand, Mazarine Pingeot in her career as a novelist has perhaps understandably focused on difficult family relationships.

But Pingeot's fifth novel, about a woman who murders her baby and hides the corpse in a freezer, has sparked a row in France after the family in a real-life infanticide case accused her of exploitation.

Pingeot, 32, pregnant with her second child, claims that in Le Cimetière des poupées (The Doll Cemetery) she merely wanted to examine the universal theme of mothers who kill their children.

But her story of a woman writing to her husband from prison about killing and freezing her baby mirrors a case that has shocked France over the past year.

Véronique Courjault was arrested last year after her husband phoned police to say he had discovered the corpses of two babies in the freezer in the family apartment in Seoul, South Korea.

The French expatriate couple, who have two other young children, are due to go on trial in France later this year in what is known as the the "frozen babies" case. Police sources have said Mrs Courjault also admitted to killing a third baby, saying she hid all three unwanted pregnancies from her husband and acted alone. Her husband is accused of complicity to murder.

Mrs Courjault's mother-in-law has accused Pingeot of publicity-seeking and disrespectful exploitation of their tragedy. But Pingeot said her novel was not based on the case. She has written to the family to explain.