Does the past ever really stay in the past?

Nikan can never be complete. He's got a rock group made up of the family he built for himself, more money than he knows what to do with, and a stream of groupies falling over themselves to date him. But none of them are her. The one regret that still plagues him, still taunts him with what he could have had.

Jenny is a survivor. Now running a group home after overcoming life in a cult lead by her manipulative father and watching her mother drink the poison he fed his followers, she fights to keep the light in the eyes of every boy who walks through her doors. Far from simple young love, Nik taught her to trust, showed her how good life could be. Before he formed the band. Before he became a famous rock star. Before he destroyed it all.

A chance meeting after years of no contact shows the connection still blazes between them. But will they have their second chance at love? Or will the weight of their past crush their future together?

If you’ve read any of the other books in the Preload series you know that Nikan grew up in a group home, met his best friends – his family – and they formed a metal band called Preload.  Nik’s girlfriend while growing up was Jenny, who also lived in a group home (not the same one).  They moved out of the home and Preload started on their journey to stardom. They fell in love and planned on being together forever.  That is until Preload went on their first tour and Nik slept with someone else.  Jenny was brokenhearted and ended up disappearing before Preload got back from their tour, never to see Nik again.

Jenny ended up going to school and becoming a social worker and worked in a group home.  When the opportunity to run the same group home that Nik and the boys had grown up in, she takes it because it would be her first opportunity to be in charge – her dream.  She knows there’s a possibility of running into Nik but she doesn’t expect it to happen so quickly and when it happens she’s wasn’t prepared for how the meeting affected her.

Nik never stopped thinking about Jenny.  He knows he fucked up all those years ago and has never stopped looking for Jenny or regretting what he did.  When he sees Jenny again he tells her exactly how he’s feeling about her and that he wants her back.  Jenny wants nothing to do with Nik but he’s persistent and soon Jenny is falling under his spell once again.

This was another great book in the Preload series.  This book showed us a different side of Preload than what we’ve seen before and I liked that we got down to the nitty gritty with the boys and their issues.  Nik had always been the glue that kept it all together but that was stressful for him and he didn’t want everyone relying on him constantly.  He also really didn’t like playing metal even though that’s what the band played.  He wanted to make his own music but didn’t want to give up on Preload either.  It was a tough thing to be caught in the middle of and hard for Nik to bring it up to the guys and actually have them understand.  On top of those issues he was trying to get Jenny back and he was trying to focus solely on her.  I felt for this guy.  Yes, it was a complete asshole move to sleep with a freaking groupie when he had the love of his life back home, but I think that Cole really showed us how he had changed, grown, matured over the years.  I honestly believed that he would never do that again.

Jenny’s situation was crazy.  Her father had been a cult leader and had eventually tried to poison his followers – when that happened he made Jenny’s mother go first and she died before the authorities stepped in and saved a lot of lives.  She’d arrived in the group home when she was about 13 years old and Nik had been her rock.  When he betrayed her, she didn’t know what to do with herself, but it didn’t stop her from making her own dreams come true. She was also dealing with getting letters from her father who was trying to get her to visit him in prison telling her he’d changed (yeah, right).  I admired Jenny’s strength with all she was going through with her dad and Nik as well as her dedication to the kids in the homes.  I also liked that she didn’t give in to Nik right away.  Yes, they ended up together, but she didn’t make it an easy road for him.

Overall the book was a really great one and I can’t wait to read the next book in the series.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Preload Series

Jordan Steele’s life began when he was ten. When he was taken from his parents and a house that was never a home. When he met his brothers, the other lost and abandoned boys in his group home. When he learned what friendship and family and love looked like.

Now he’s made good, touring the world with the band he and his brothers formed in that crowded group home. No one but his found family really knows the man under the fame and fortune, the scars he hides behind the rockstar lifestyle. Until he sees her through the windows of the National Ballet, dancing, and suddenly the world doesn’t seem so dark.

Aleksandra Artemov ticks all the ballet boxes. Father a legendary Kirov dancer. Check. Prepping since birth for classical ballet. Check. Compulsive control over the food she eats. Check. Principal dancer at The National Ballet of Canada. Check. But what she craves is freedom.

She craves Jordan.

Everything about him should terrify her. His size, his tattoos, his edge. But he doesn’t. He stirs her very soul. Jordan has nothing but himself to offer her, and he's never been good enough for anyone. Can he figure out how to face his own demons before he loses his light for good?

Jordan’s early life was hell.  He experienced horrible abuse and abandonment but survived and grew up to become a rock star – literally.  He and his “brothers,” the boys from the group home he lived in, created Preload, a heavy metal band that hit it big.  From the outside Jordan looks like he has everything that anyone could want but inside he’s constantly in turmoil.  He doesn’t believe that he is someone that can be loved and he certainly doesn’t know how to do romantic love.  When out walking one night Jordan sees Aleksandra rehearsing and he becomes completely enthralled.

Aleksandra aka Lexi is also someone that looks like she’s got it made – from the outside.  She has done very well for herself in the National Ballet of Canada but it’s never enough for her father who was once a dancer himself. He’s constantly telling her that she’s fat or not good enough and pushes her to her limits.  She would love to dance in some of the contemporary pieces the company does but her father will only let her do the classics.  She feels she owes him because of the sacrifices he’s made but his verbal abuse hurts.

When Jordan and Lexi meet it’s scary for both of them but each pushes through their issues in order to be together.  The question is, will their issues push their way to the front and eventually pull them apart?

I was so excited when I saw that Scarlett Cole had started a series that told us the stories of the men of Preload. While reading the Second Circle series I was completely intrigued by these men and their strength.  Jordan’s book was a great start to hopefully what will be a wonderful series.

Jordan is an amazing man.  He survived his horrible childhood and has worked through a lot of his issues over the years.  The one that he can’t deal with is his brothers leaving him.  He knows that they all live together because of him but he can’t find it in him to care until he meets Lexi. He finally starts to realize that he can’t continue living as he has in the past because he needs to be strong for not only himself and his brothers but for Lexi as well.  I loved how he worked things out in his own brain, with his brothers and with Lexi.  He was smart enough to know that he couldn’t do the same things and expect a different outcome.  Yes, sometimes he was overwhelmed but for the most part he had the strength to push through so that they could be together.

Lexi had a decent childhood but what she saw as her father’s discipline amounted to physical and verbal abuse.  She was 26 years-old, had a wonderful job, owned her own home and paid her own bills but she was still under the thumb of her father.  It took a lot to break free from him and Jordan helped her with that.  I hated that it had to be such a caustic break with her father, and I wish that we could have gotten more closure with that issue, but it was still well done.  Her father was a complete bastard so I was just happy she was away from him.

Of course we got to catch up with Dred and Pixie in this book, and Dred’s daughter, Petal. (The Purest Hook) I loved seeing where they were in their lives (approx..) 9 months after their story took place.  We didn’t get too too much info about the other guys in the band except for Elliot who is a bit of a pyro from what I understand.  His book should definitely be interesting.

Overall I enjoyed the book tremendously.  Despite all the issues that the H/h had, and some of the darker things they spoke about, there really wasn’t too much angst between them.  Yes, they had to work through stuff but hey, that’s what I call a normal relationship.  I loved that they communicated in order to make things right.  The book was a great and one I definitely recommend.

Rating: 4 out of 5