{Book Review} Please, Pretty Lights By Ina Zajac (@InaZajac)

It’s September when good girl Via Sorenson stumbles into a Seattle strip club, drunk and alone on her twenty-first birthday. Matt and Nick—best friends, bandmates, and bouncers—do their best to shield her from their sadistic cocaine-trafficking boss, Carlos. They don’t realize her daddy issues come with a forty-million-dollar trust fund and a legacy she would do anything to escape. 

She is actually Violetta Rabbotino, who had been all over the news ten years earlier when her father, an acclaimed abstract artist, came home in a rage, murdered her mother, then turned the gun on himself. Young Violetta was spared, hidden behind the family Christmas tree, veiled by the mysticism of its pretty lights whose unadulterated love captivated and calmed her.

Now, desperate to shed her role as orphaned victim, Via stage dives into a one-hundred-day adventure with Matt and Nick, the bassist and drummer of popular nineties cover band Obliviot. The rock-and-roll lifestyle is the perfect distraction—until she is rattled by true love. As Christmas looms closer, her notorious past becomes undeniable. How will she ever untangle herself from her twisted string of pretty lights?

Via came to Seattle to try to forget her tragic past.  She has tried to build a life to make up for the evil that she knows must lurk in her soul – just like it did with her father.  God, church, and the perfect Fiancé is all part of the mask that she wears until the September that she turns twenty-one. 

She walks into “Hotties” and meets Nick and Matt – local musicians who man the doors at this less-than-desirable strip club. They try and keep her clear of trouble but this is just the beginning for Via - the beginning of love, the beginning of dependency and ultimately, the beginning of the end.  

“Oh, my God, she thought. He owns me now. I’m going to fall in love with this guy. He’s going to tear me apart. But she didn’t stop him because she figured it was the kind of heartbreak she ultimately deserved.”

Mattias Smith Romero has never met anyone like Via.  She is beautiful, adventurous and just a little bit innocent. He knows better than to get mixed up with a girl who is engaged to someone else, but he simply can’t stay away. 

Something is happening to Via.  Whatever secret she is hiding is leading her into a downward spiral and Matt has to decide if true love is strong enough to catch her fall.

“I’ll never tell,” he said. “But….” Her heart caught. “But?” “But, we can talk about it anytime you feel like it. Anytime. I mean it, anytime.” Relief sprang out from every corner of the room and pounced on her like a pack of fluffy puppies. He hadn’t laughed or run away. He still sat there. He was still there. He wasn’t going anywhere. “And also,” he added. “Have I told you today?” Her smile was irrepressible. “You’re pretty.”

Please, Pretty Lights is simply astounding! It is a gritty, funny and powerfully poignant ride through every emotion imaginable.  Ina totally hypnotized me with her music-laden prose and hard-hitting story line. I fell in love, I laughed, I screamed and I wept – and I’d do it all again for this amazing book…

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