Romance Readers Retreat: Review: Jaded Hearts (Loaded Replay #1) by Harper Sloan

*****5 Stars*****

This is a spin-off from the Hope Town series but can be read as a standalone. It features Chance who fans of the Hope Town series will know as being Cohen's friend who he used to be roommates with. Chance first gets a glimpse of our heroine, Wrenlee (beautiful name!) in one of the Hope Town books when he goes to a concert with Dani and the girls. I didn't make that connection at first until he mentions it during this book, I love how Harper's books are linked up this way, it gives me the warm and fuzzies to know that characters whose books we've previously read and loved are still going strong when we get any kind of small update on them in other books.

This book, even though it's connected to previous books, revolves around a whole new set of characters for us to get to know. Loaded Replay are a very successful band made up of Wrenlee and her brother Weston and their childhood friends Luke and Jamison. Chance enters their world when he interviews for the position of security for the band with the focus being Wrenlee due to some freaky obsessed fan stuff that had been brought to their attention.

Wrenlee is a sweet girl, she has a great sense of humour and despite being sweet offstage she's a complete rock goddess on stage. I loved the banter between her and the rest of the band. Out of the side characters Jamison is my favourite, and I'm super excited that his book is next, he's such a cheeky chap that it's charming.

Chance, the hero of this tale in every way, is just sinfully hot. He's one of the Corps Security boys so how can he not be? I think it's pretty much a prerequisite to being employed there!

This book is written is Harper's usual style, she has a way of putting a story together that makes it recognisable as being one of hers and guarantees that I don't even need to read the blurbs of her books to see if I'm interested in reading. I just know without a shadow of a doubt that if it has her name to it, I need it like yesterday. She's one of the top 10 in her genre for me and I can't recommend her books enough.

Reviewed by Steph Lewis

Signing with Brighthouse Records was supposed to be everything we ever wanted—our better life. Our chance at everything we never had but always wanted. All our dreams would finally come true and we were on top of the world. It was our chance at the happiness we never had in life.

Our every desire was at our fingertips and the power of that feeling was all consuming. But then it took every dream we thought would come true and it slapped us in the face with the cold hard reality.

Dreams were just that…something that floated on the cusp of untouchable, taunting you with every graze of your fingertips before slipping even further away.

Happiness…that feeling is a joke.

In the end it became painfully obvious that each of us would always have each other, but we would forever be alone.