Does the past ever really stay in the past? Find out in Scarlett Cole’s NIKAN REBUILT, the steamy, third standalone in her rockstar romance series, Preload. After years of no contact, Nik and first love Jenny’s connection still blazes between them. Will they have their second chance at love? Or will the weight of their past crush their future together?

Don’t know about you, but we love a great Rockstar romance. And Scarlett Cole knows how to write a great Rockstar romance. We are excited to share with you NIKAN REBUILT, book three in Cole’s Preload series. Follow the tour for reviews, excerpts, and enter to win a $50 Amazon gift card + ebook copies of JORDAN RECLAIMED and ELLIOTT REDEEMED!

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Synopsis

From the queen of heart-pounding, sexy, emotional romance Scarlett Cole comes Nikan Rebuilt, the next novel in the Preload series.

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 rockstar. 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?

 

 

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Review

4.5 emotional, second-chance stars

I have eagerly read all of Scarlett Cole’s books, and I know that she can bring the feels, but OMG, she really brought the feels with this one, and I loved it! A gorgeously emotional second-chance-romance between fascinatingly complicated Nikan and his first love, Jenny, and the story of a man who is struggling to figure out who he is. It’s a beautifully written book that I couldn’t put down, and I absolutely loved it.

Nikan is the guitarist for metal band, Preload, a group of guys that came together in a group home, traumatised from heartbreaking childhoods but who found and saved each other and became closer than brothers. The band went on to become world-famous, and the boys achieved success they never could have dreamed of. Now they are slowly achieving personal happiness, with the boys falling one by one to women who are completing them.

Nik is the self-designated father-figure to the boys. He’s the one that smooths out difficulties, who makes sure everybody is where they need to be, and the one that the boys turn to when they need a voice of reason. But he’s been acting in the role for so long, that he’s forgotten who he is. And watching his brothers find love is making him feel the loss of the only woman he’s ever loved. And then suddenly, she is back.

Jenny was also raised in a group home, and from the moment that she and Nikan met as teenagers, they were it for each other. They became friends, they fell in love and they were soulmates in every sense of the word, knowing that they would be together forever and dreaming of the future they would have. It was perfect until Nikan made a mistake and in one disastrous night, ruined everything. Now Jenny is back in town to manage the very group home where the boys were raised, and from the moment they see each other again, all of those feelings which never went away, are brought right back to the surface in a gut-churning reunion.

“Don’t,” Nik said, stepping closer to her. “Don’t reduce our history to a five-second dismissal when I haven’t seen you in nearly a decade.”
…“You broke me into a million pieces I have never been able to put back together properly, and I hate you for that.”

OMG, I love an emotional love story, and Nik and Jenny’s is full of feels! Even after being apart for eight years it is clear that they still love each other, but there is so much hurt between them. Nik did wrong, he knows he did wrong, and he is desperate to make up for it. But Jenny has put up walls to protect her heart after Nik left her so broken, and she is fighting hard to keep him away. He has a battle on his hands, but it is one he is determined to win, and OMG, I loved it!

“I let you walk away without a fight when I was a messed-up twenty-three-year-old who hadn’t figured out his place in the world. I can wait as long as you need to get your hear around the fact that I’m back.”

“I don’t think you realize that you ruined me for everybody else. Including you,” she said. “I can’t do falling in love. I can’t do depending on someone else ever again.
Nik placed his hand on her cheek. “I get it. That’s why I am here. I know I’ve got an uphill battle to get you to trust me again, but I’m ready to do the work. It’s going to take time, but I’m going to show you that it’s okay to depend on me because I’ll be there for you a thousand times over.”

I could feel the depth of the connection between these two, their love for each other, and just how torn up they were over the destruction of everything between them. I loved their honesty, the way they hold nothing back, and Nik’s commitment to making amends and getting his girl back and all of the swoony declarations that go along with that.

“I don’t want what we were to be the sum total of everything we ever add up to.”

*dreamy sigh*

It’s not an easy ride for them, but I loved every sweet, funny, painful, heartbreaking and heartachingly romantic moment of their reconnection as they finally faced the past and opened themselves up to each other all over again.

“So where do we go from here?”…
“That’s up to you, sweetheart. I’m yours, Jenny. I always have been. The question is, are you still mine?”

It’s beautiful, and I could feel every emotion the two of them went through, and I was completely swept up in all that they felt for each other. And the sexy time! OMG, it’s hot, intense and passionate, and a blistering reflection of all of those feels.

“You feel so good, every inch of you. You want to be reminded just how good we were together? Then feel this. Feel how hard I am for you, listen to how breathless you make me, know that no matter how long tonight lasts, you own me.” He pressed himself into the very sweet spot between her thighs, and she arched her back in response. “Tell me you want me to make love to you. Tell me you want this, Jenny, because I want you more than I want my next breath.”

*Phew!*

Running alongside the romance is Nikan’s personal journey, and I loved the complexity of his character. His life has been the band and his brothers for so long, he’s been the glue that holds them all together, and it has taken its toll on him and he no longer even remembers who he is. Now, with Jenny coming back into his life, Nik has reached the point where he needs to take a step back from the co-dependency of his brothers and figure out what he wants. It’s an emotional journey for him, and some of those the scenes with the boys were heartwrenching, but it’s beautifully written and, again, I could feel what he was going through. It ties in beautifully with the love story, and with Jenny dealing with her own issues from the past, and it works to progress their story as they finally get the chance to be there for each other after so many years of coping on their own.

Of course the Preload boys (and their girls) all a big part of the story, and I loved getting to catch up with them. I also loved the additional bonus of getting to see a new generation of boys growing up in the group home, which was both heartbreaking and sweet, and the connection that the Preload boys shared with the kids. And though this book stands alone as its own story, with the tensions that unfolded among the group, and the changes that are happening for them, I cannot WAIT for Lennon’s book up next!

4.5 stars.

An Advanced Review Copy was generously provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.

 

Preload

 

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Excerpt

Copyright © 2017 Scarlett Cole

Nik took the towels out of her hands and placed them on the dryer. “Hey, come here,” he said as he reached for her hands. “Talk to me.”

She wasn’t ready to, not least because she didn’t understand the swirl of feelings sweeping through her. To put into words for Nik exactly how that felt was impossible. “I’m fine, I’m good. I just have a lot to do here now.”

Nik placed his finger under her chin and raised her eyes so she was forced to look at him. “I think we can safely say that lies have no place between us. So, I’ll tell you what I’m thinking, and then you can tell me what you’re thinking. Okay?”

Jenny sighed and nodded. “Okay.”

“I didn’t come here tonight expecting to kiss you like this. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about it, but I know I have a lot of work to do to prove myself to you. But seeing you laugh, and seeing you look at me, just for a moment, without the pain I caused you in your eyes . . . Well, I don’t even know how to begin to explain what that felt like to me—except that I didn’t want to be away from you for another moment, and that it felt like a new beginning of sorts. If there’s any doubt in your mind about what that kiss did to me, I’d encourage you to touch me and check, but I think that might be a step too far, given where we are. Now it’s your turn.”

His words made her stomach flip, and despite her best efforts she was filled with a warm and fuzzy feeling. She looked over to the staircase again to check that nobody was within earshot. “We’re coming at this new friendship . . . relationship . . . from two completely different places. I’m mad at myself for letting you get this close to me again. It’s reckless to fall for you all over again and I know it. But when you stand so close to me, I can . . .” Crap. How could she explain that the way the smell of him, and the heat of him, and the proximity of him, and the touch of him took her straight back to that time and place where she wholeheartedly loved him?

“You can what?” Nik asked, moving his hands to her hips.

“I can remember us. Before.”

 

 

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Giveaway

Enter to win a $50 Amazon Gift Card!  (Plus ebook copies of JORDAN RECLAIMED and ELLIOTT REDEEMED!)

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About Scarlett Cole

The tattoo across my right hip says it all really. A Life Less Ordinary. Inked by the amazingly talented Luke Wessman at the Wooster Street Social Club (a.k.a. New York Ink). Why is it important? Well, it sums up my view on life. That we should all aspire to live a life that is less boring, less predictable. Be bold, and do something amazing. I’ve made some crazy choices. I’ve been a car maker, a consultant, and even a senior executive at a large retailer running strategy. Born in England, spent time in the U.S. and Japan, before ending up in Canada were I met my own, personal hero – all six and a half feet of him. Both of us are scorpios! Yeah, I know! Should have checked the astrological signs earlier, but somehow it works for us. We have two amazing kids, who I either could never part with or could easily be convinced to sell on e-bay.

I’ve wanted to be a writer for a really long time. Check through my office cupboards or my computer and you’ll find half written stories and character descriptions everywhere. Now I’m getting the chance to follow that dream.

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