Copping It Sweet by Anna Clifton *Guest Post & Review*

Copping It Sweet by Anna Clifton *Guest Post & Review*

Hey Everyone!

I'd like to introduce you to Anna Clifton who has recently released her latest novel, Copping it Sweet.



If you're interested in learning a little more about me then I can help you with that here too, although I'm never quite sure what to say in these 'about me' bits.

On thinking back on how I came to be writing romance novels, I realised that I've held down more than fifty jobs in my life so far. They've ranged from scooping ice-creams, to selling glow sticks, to stumbling around in a container ship on absurdly impractical 3-inch heels, trying to work out who's legally responsible for contaminating an entire cargo of Swiss chocolate. If nothing else, my ‘interesting’ working life and the wonderful characters I've met along the way have been great 'copy'; it was inevitable they'd demand creative exposure in some shape or form eventually.

My fascination with the romance novel itself first unfolded when I was staying on a friend’s outback cattle station; I just happened to pick one up from her big sister's bookshelf. As a fourteen-year-old reader I instantly fell in love with its passion, its just-for-the-hell-of-it fun and its unbridled HEA optimism. Many years later, as a writer, I would come to love the scope that the genre offers for exploring the endless mystery around why we feel, think and behave as we do – a special focus in my stories about love, friendship and family.

I currently live in Sydney in an often too-small house with my husband and three children and our two spoilt-rotten cats. Our ‘adopted’ pets, a permanently randy alpha-male Brush Turkey and several roof-dancing possums, share our bush gully backdrop.

Anna x


Connect with Anna via:  

Guest Post

Hi Renee. Thanks for having me as a guest on your blog to talk about romance novels and the wonderful possibilities child characters bring to them. 

The plotline of the first romance novel I ever read is hazy now. What I do remember is its opening scene, and the riveting ‘show don’t tell’ way that the author laid out the tense but loving relationship between the male protagonist and his angsty teenage daughter. The first setting is his bedroom. He’s getting ready to go to a ball. His daughter is challenging his authority, yet her need for love and reassurance is coming through loud and clear. What is also coming through is her father’s growing fear that he has little clue how to parent her through her coming teenage years.



As I read that scene I made a vow that if children ever featured in my books they would not be mere accessories to the main characters. They would be central to their parents’ existence, just as that anxiety-ridden teenager had been central to her father’s. Four of my five published novels would eventually feature children. They span all ages and personality types, but they share the basic need of all children to feel loved and secure. And each of them will demand this from their parents in ways that will change all of their lives.

In Making Ends Meet, it’s Harry’s seven-year-old daughter, Rosie, who takes matters into her own hands to help her father move on from his no-future marriage with her mother. 

In Adam’s Boys too, I was additionally challenged with the ‘show-don’t-tell’ imperative in fiction writing. The reason being that Abbie’s son, Henry, is only three and unable to articulate his needs, namely having his father front and centre in his life. Nevertheless, Henry will finally let his mother know in no uncertain terms that she can never again make him choose between her and his new-found father, Adam.

Finally (and I can’t say too much because of spoilers) in my latest release, Copping It Sweet, it takes two teenage boys to finally lay down the gauntlet to Sara to face her long-held fear of her violent husband. 

Copping It Sweet is a story about the insidious nature of intimidation and control. But as with all of my novels featuring children, it is also about the power of children’s unconditional love and trust to inspire and strengthen us to look for hope where we least expect it. 


Copping It Sweet by Anna Clifton

To find out her secrets he’s willing to risk everything—including his heart.

Sara Sullivan has a landlord who wants to evict her, a 1960s Beetle that rarely starts, and a looming exam she’s all set to fail. But none of that compares to the return home of Detective Sergeant Cooper Halligan, her best friend’s brother and the single biggest threat to the secret she’s guarded for years…

Cooper Halligan is happy to be home. But he’s not happy to discover that Sara Sullivan is a permanent fixture within his family, especially when he’s the only one who knows about the sinister marriage lying hidden in her past.

Sara’s crime-boss husband is the prime suspect in the murder of an innocent street kid, and now Cooper’s prepared to do anything to find out what Sara knows.



Hey! Here's my review.



This book was my introduction to Anna Clifton and read so well as a stand-alone that I didn't realise it was part of a series until I came to write my review. 

I loved the familiar Australian setting, those little touches that make me feel at home while I read. There was the perfect balance of romance and suspense, raising the stakes near the end to the point that I couldn't see how the characters would survive.

 Looking for an alpha male cop fix? Here it is.

I received this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.


★★★★

Purchase links:


  • Where: Author Invitation
  • Format: ebook