Alright, in case anyone else runs into this - I have found that I'm incorrect and it does actually fire, but only sometimes!!
The problem is that it does not fire on all routes. So far I have tested index, new, show, and edit. It fires for show and edit but not for index or new.
I am not sure if this is intentional or not and would love it if someone could shed some light on why it behaves like this please?
I have also left a comment on a very similar question on the author's github site: load function doesn't add to req object on index route