Claudia Y Burgoa has two amazing NA releases, Where Life Takes You and Getting By! And I can't wait to tell you more about her and her books!
Release Date: December 1, 2013
BECCA TRENT LIVED HER CHILDHOOD NEXT TO A CRUEL WOMAN—her mom—who lived to torment and neglect her. During her high school years, her mother married; bringing home not only a new husband, but a step sister her same age. The latter took over her Mom’s role—making Becca’s life miserable. Including stealing Ian—Becca’s best friend and boyfriend—Lisa treated her worse than her mother had for the previous fifteen years. A couple years later, things ended up in tragedy.
Becca buried that part of her life in the deep corners of her psyche, caught between sanity and nightmares. Between therapy, work and her constantly looming past she can’t seem to find room to breathe. The memories of her late step-sister, Lisa, are her closest company.
Her best friend, Dan gives her that family love she always lacked. Everything was close to perfect, until everything and everyone from her past came back. Now she’s trying to figure out how to survive and keep that bond which seems now to be held together by a thread.
Release Date: February 18th, 2014
When Emma Anderson arrived at San Francisco International Airport, she regretted accepting the distinction of being the maid of honor to Gaby’s—her childhood friend—wedding. It had been years since the last time she set foot in Menlo Park, where her parents had been killed. The rug where she had been shoving her feelings since that day looked bumpier than a camel’s hump. Who could blame her; if she hadn’t been selfish they’d still be around. Ever since that fateful day, Emma has been perfecting the knack of Getting By.
Cade’s wedding in Menlo Park—a city close to San Francisco—might be the perfect place for Jake Knight to shake the memories of his ex, Emma Anderson for good. Single, available women galore for an entire week was the perfect medication, one he intended to take three times a day for an entire week to return to his player days. It was a plan the former spy thought flawless until he came face to face with the maid of honor. Jake’s perfect retreat turns into a flight, fight or hide week of celebrations.
Claudia lives in Colorado with her family and three dogs. Two beagles who believe they are human, and a bichon who thinks she’s a beagle. While managing life, she works as a CFO at a small IT Company. She’s a dreamer who enjoys music, laughter and a good story.
BLOG TOUR SCHEDULE:
3/17: Mary's Cup of Tea - Promo Post
3/18: Speculative Friction - Promo Post
3/19: alwaysjoart - Promo Post
3/20: Musings of the Book-a-holic Fairies, Inc. - Double Review
3/21: For Whom The Books Toll - Promo Post
3/22: deal sharing aunt - Promo Post
3/23: Rose & Beps Blog - Promo Post
3/24: Workaday Reads - Review
3/25: Dowie's Place - Review
3/26: Coffee and Characters - Promo Post
3/27: Cheryl's Book Nook - Promo Post
3/28: Bajgajka Loves books And Giveaways - Promo Post
3/29: Wicca Witch 4 Book Blog - Promo Post
3/30: Tigris Eden - Promo Post
3/31: Shhh.,.Mommy's In the Bathroom, Reading - Double Review
✿✿✿CLICK READ MORE TO SEE THE DOUBLE REVIEW OF CLAUDIA'S BOOKS BY THE MIDNIGHT FAIRY AND THE ROCK CHICK FAIRY!
✿ The Meet-Cute:
A girl and a boy trapped in a box of doom. Girl is claustrophobic and Boy finds her beautiful despite her nervous rants. Girl's rambling included a superhero to save them from being trapped in the elevator and Boy then offered his services to keep her calm. Their moment inside the box of doom lasted for more or less than 20 minutes. The hero saved the day, Boy got a kiss from Girl. Boy asked for Girl's name and phone number but alas, Girl wanted serendipity to take its own course. However, serendipity is such a hard worker! A month later they met again in an airport, Girl is stubborn and refused to give Boy her information. Two months later, another accidental meeting which resulted to a couple of hours of comfortable companionship, a perfect first kiss but still zero name and phone number. On the fourth meeting, Girl finally gave in to the attraction. They spent the weekend together, enjoyed each other but Monday came and Girl left with the same lines: “No names, no numbers and let Serendipity do the job." Who would have thought that serendipity works overtime? They met again, this time serendipity made sure that they will exchange names. That was beginning of Jake and Emma's "light and uncomplicated" relationship.
✿ The Characters:
Emma Anderson is a creative director for K&W New York. She's good at her job and appears as a workaholic to her colleagues. In reality, Emma is haunted by her tragic past, she uses her job to escape and to forget the bitter memories of her past. Honestly, I didn't like Emma at first because in the prologue she was the one who ended things with Jacob. I was prepared to hate Emma because Jake is awesome. I liked him from the start, he's funny, smart, kind, hot, not to mention a real life super hero--- who in their right mind will dump a guy like that? However, as the story unfolds, I learned to empathize with Emma and eventually like her. There's always two sides of the story. Emma's a trooper, she's been through a lot of stuff and she's still fighting.
Jacob Knight, the man is H.O.T. I already mentioned his other characteristics above but I think I failed to mention how sweet the guy is. I fell in love with his character during the reunion, he's just so sweet and caring to Emma even though things between them have ended 3 months prior.
Liam and Mitch Knight are Jacob's brothers. Mitch is Jake's twin and Liam is the youngest. I love their relationship, they are so close. They are brothers and best friends. I'm looking forward to get to know these two on their own books. =D
Rachel and Ed Knight are Jake's parents. I love them! They are such a wonderful couple, even better as parents. It makes me wonder what happened to their kids why they are so afraid of commitment. Anyway, I like them both, they are a great addition to the story.
✿ The Story:
This is about two people who engaged in a no-strings attached relationship that slowly turned into something more. When the two started seeing each other, they decided that it should be light and uncomplicated because they believe that both of them can't handle a serious relationship. Emma is afraid to get too attached to anybody because she feels that she doesn't deserve it. Emma is still suffering from survivor's guilt several years after her parents' tragic death. Jake on the other hand is afraid to commit to someone because he believes that he is not capable of protecting the people he cares about. His commitment phobia rooted from a work-related incident in which his comrades died in a mission with only 2 survivors--- Jake and his second in command. Jake had to go through physical and mental therapy to recover, but he was not the same man he used to be before the tragedy. So, when Emma started to feel more, she decided to end their relationship to prevent further complications. The book revolved around Emma and Jake's, past and present.
When I started reading the book, I got a little confused. It felt like I was dropped in the middle of the story. However, as I read along everything started to make sense and I found myself anticipating their accidental reunion at Cade and Gaby's wedding. I felt Emma's inner turmoil about Jake, she loves him a lot but she believes that her wants doesn't coincide with Jake's anymore. Jake on the other hand clearly never got over Emma, it's been three months but she still haunts him. Their reunion was confusing, sad, awkward, funny, exciting, bitter sweet and it involved a lot of revelations--- in other words, it was an emotional roller coaster ride.
✿ The Writing:
Ms. Burgoa did really well in telling Emma and Jake's story. I fell in love with the characters. I felt their pain, confusion and love. Also, I'm glad that the author used a his/her POV because it made their situation easier to understand, not to mention cost - efficient. Nowadays, authors do a separate book for the same story but different POV which is sometimes not worth buying. I didn't see any grammar issues, if there's any I didn't notice it. I saw a couple of spelling errors which i'm sure you can easily overlook. Anyway, I enjoyed this book a lot and i'm looking forward to read the next book. The excerpt for the next book got me really excited, seems like someone is going to lose a bet!
✿ Rating: 4 Fairy Wings!
Hi! This is The Rock Chick Fairy. I'm here to review one of Claudia's book. This one is entitled "WHERE LIFE TAKES YOU" (Life #1).
This book is not for the fainthearted.
I admit, the story is so COMPLICATED that I felt so exhausted after reading this. However, this book is entertaining enough that I held one until the very last word.
This is all about a woman named Becca who had a very sordid past. All I can say is that it involves an ex, an evil stepsister and a jaw-dropping-horrible-yes-just-plain-horrible-parenting! I will not reveal what happened, you have to read it for yourself! :) She then went on with life, but not so. She went on, but she lived in her own bubble. She didn't really socialize. She just clung onto her best friend, Dan. She was so closed off. I believe she's one of the most closed off characters that I've ever encountered. I tried hard to understand all of her reservations though. If you experience what she had, I'm pretty sure you'll also be traumatized for life. I even admire Becca because she had the strength to live on, of course with the help of her good friend Dan.
Now speaking of Dan...
Dan is my dream hero. He's charming, hot, witty, humorous, protective, rich, sort of famous and super kind. I can't believe that he's being pushed to the friend zone! He's just not fit for that! haha! Anyway, as I said, I tried hard to understand Becca. I tried REALLY HARD to understand her denseness when it came to Dan's feelings. It was so obvious to me as a reader. I also admire Dan because he didn't give up. He was always there for her even when they were apart. He was always in the background, checking on things, making sure Becca has everything she needs. It was just... so sweet and so nice of him. I hated Becca at some point because I thought she didn't really appreciate Dan's efforts, but then I learn just how dense Becca is, and then I had to forgive her character some more.
Aside from Dan, there's another guy here that I like. Ty. He's the brother of the evil stepsister. At first, I thought that I would hate him and his guts, but as it turns out, he's a decent guy with a good intention. I'm looking forward to more brotherly advice from him. He's good at that.
This book will shock you, irritate you, exhaust, frustrate you and will make you hate more characters than you expected. But then again, it will entertain you. It will make you feel lucky about your life and it will make you appreciate little things that your family and friends do with and for you.
The ending is kind of open ended. I like what happened to Becca and Dan though. When you read this book, you'll see just how fitting the ending is. It will make you ask for the next book right away... which reminds me...
MISS BURGOA... WHERE IS THE NEXT BOOK? :)
4 fairy wings!
i'm waiting for hothouse flower. thanks for the giveaway!
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