Where Life Takes You and Getting By Claudia Y Burgoa with REVIEWS & GIVEAWAY

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, thing 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.

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Where Life Takes You

By Claudia Burgoa

Review by Christina Mock

5 Stars

Becca has spent a lifetime as the victim of her mother’s cruel emotional abuse, the scapegoat of her stepsister’s untimely death. Becca’s mother blames her, Becca blames herself, and the community is suspicious of her for the incident that took the life of her stepsister and best friend, Ian. Only Becca knows the truth though, she was the only one in the room that escaped to tell the whole story.

Dan is Rebecca’s best friend, her confidante, her boss. He understands she is broken. He may not know exactly how she got that way, but he is there for her, in any way she needs him. He has deep feelings for her that she doesn’t recognize, although she has feelings for him as well. Dan has his own demons he is fighting; can he possibly be strong enough to fight his own battles, much less Becca’s?

Dan & Rebecca’s relationship is incredibly complicated and inter-woven on so many different levels, with a deep, rich, shared history. Their characters are well developed, the fragility of Becca’s psyche in particular is palpable, as well as the love Dan feels for her. Theirs is a story of true love, in an abstract, broken, kind of way. They are the family, to each other, that neither of them has ever known.

There is a lot of going back and forth between the past and present day events, however it is done so in a way that makes it easy to follow and it provides much needed background information as the plot twists become more complicated. Becca regularly writes to her deceased step-sister in a journal, giving the reader a glimpse into the thoughts and feelings that have haunted for years. It feels deeply personal and slightly voyeuristic.

When a person from Becca’s past returns, harboring secrets of his own, she must face the truth once and for all, bringing long buried secrets out into the open. Little did she know, someone was out there all along who could help clear her name of any wrongdoing on her part, perhaps giving her the opportunity to put the past behind her, to move on and put her life back together.

Where Life Takes You is another absolutely stunning work that will take you on an emotional roller coaster ride. Ms. Burgoa has a talent of creating plot twists that go straight for the gut and leave you breathless. Where Life Takes You is five stars from cover to cover. It is an intensely emotional read but will engage you from the very start. Be prepared though, because at the end we’re left with the mother of all cliffhangers and a mean case of book hangover. Normally I’m not a fan of cliffhanger endings, however it was a very natural place for the story to pause, I just wish the next volume was available to jump into right away, as I have gotten so emotionally attached to these characters I am eager for resolution.

Christina Mock

3/22/14

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.

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Getting By

(A Knight’s Tale #1)

By Claudia Burgoa

Review by Christina Mock

5 Stars

This is the first book that I have read by this author and I can assure you right now, she has been added to my “autobuy” list.

Emma is in her early 20s and has the career of her dreams. She lives, breathes, and dreams the advertising world and is a workaholic. She has no time for anything else in her world except work, which takes her mind away from all of the things that went wrong in her past. She lost her parents and may as well have lost her only sister. Upon their passing, secrets were revealed that turned her world upside and upset the relationships with her only living relatives, both sets of grandparents. Emma doesn’t need relationships; she has work, which is her main focus.

Jake is a smart businessman who turned a small nest egg into a fortune, with the support of his two brothers. Jake is a love ‘em and leave ‘em kind of guy. He has far too much going on with acquisitions and mergers to worry about a relationship, so when he first meets the quirky Emma by chance in a broken down elevator, his world is turned upside down and he learns the meaning of the word serendipity. What started as instant attraction between two strangers in an elevator, it turns into a two-year-long affair of chance meetings around the globe. Once things get a little too comfortable and start resembling an actual relationship, Emma makes a run for it, leaving Jake to wonder what went wrong.

A few months later serendipity makes a play again when both Jake & Emma find themselves attending the same wedding in California. This is the first time Emma has returned to Menlo Park, CA after the tragedy that changed her life. She’ll have to confront the ghosts that continue to haunt her, as well as deal with the feelings between Jake and her that are obviously still very much alive. Can Jake accept the secrets that Emma has been keeping? Are there even more secrets that members of Emma’s family haven’t discovered? This book will literally keep you on the edge of your seat with the twists and turns it takes.

When I originally read the synopses I was immediately intrigued. When I opened my kindle and started reading, I was hooked and couldn’t put it down. Ms. Burgoa has expertly created amazing characters with depth and mystery and a storyline that you just can’t let go. The book invokes such a range of emotions. There were moments of happiness, sadness, the heat between Emma & Jake was palpable and you could feel the affection that the families have for one another. This truly was an amazing book.

If I could give Getting By six stars, I would, it really was that good. Thankfully there is more to this story as this is the first in the series. I know I will definitely be looking out for the next installment. While this book is considered a New Adult romance, it is so different that most of the books that fit into the genre. Whether it is just because Ms. Burgoa’s writing is better than her peers or the storyline is just more mature than others I don’t know, but I truly feel as though this story stands out as one of the best books so far this year. Check this one out, you won’t be sorry.

Christina Mock

3/19/14

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.

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