A Love Song for Ricki Wilde

September 1, 2023

Following the Reese Witherspoon Bookclub pick Seven Days in June, Williams's A Love Song for Ricki Wilde features a freewheeling young woman who leaves behind her stuffy Atlanta family for a contemporary New York still echoing with the Harlem Renaissance and meets a handsome stranger who will change her life. Prepub Alert.

Copyright 2023 Library Journal

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from November 1, 2023

Ricki Wilde's inability to fit in with her rich, insipid family has made her doubt her ability to connect with others. Disinterested in the family business, she has a chance encounter that spurs her to move to Harlem and pursue her passion for all things floral. Not long after her arrival, she meets Ezra Walker, a reclusive musician whose talent is his primary tether to a world that has caused him much pain. Ezra and Ricki's shared attraction is immediate, so his strong reluctance to get to know her is mystifying. Being together requires them to navigate obstacles larger and less straightforward than their past hurts. However, Ricki and Ezra's found families provide them with the type of support and acceptance their biological families are unable or unwilling to provide. Williams's (Seven Days in June) novel is both a love letter to Harlem and a recognition of its history that gentrification cannot erase. VERDICT This fantastical novel, in which the past and present collide in unusual ways, is sure to be popular where romance, African American fiction, and relationship fiction circulate well; highly recommended for all libraries.--Nicole Williams

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from December 4, 2023
Elegantly blending past and present, romance and fantasy, Williams (Seven Days in June) delivers a gorgeous, transportive love letter to the Harlem Renaissance. The novel begins in the present day, introducing 28-year-old vintage fashionista Ricki Wilde, the youngest in a high-achieving, high-society Atlanta family. While her sisters happily contribute to her father’s funeral home empire, Ricki, who’s considered by her family to be “too flighty, too messy, too much,” wants nothing to do with the family business. She dreams instead of opening a flower shop—and through hard work, an extremely popular floral Instagram account, and a touch of fate, she’s able to move to Harlem and follow her dream. Bouts of crushing loneliness and social anxiety are eased by Tuesday, a former child star who bursts into the shop and becomes Ricki’s new best friend, and Ms. Della, her spunky 96-year-old landlady. And then there’s Ezra, a jazz savant who, Ricki thinks, would be “beautiful in any era, anytime, anywhere”—and indeed he seems somewhat out of place in this one. What begins as a simple romance is elevated by rich history as the story flashes back through Harlem’s past, revealing both its glamor and its danger. This vast time span creates an epic feel that never overpowers the tender heat of the romance. It’s a showstopper. Agent: Cherise Fisher, Wendy Sherman Assoc.

January 1, 2024
A woman newly arrived in Harlem falls in love with a man out of time. Ricki Wilde has never fit in with her buttoned-up, high-society Atlanta family--she's always been a rule-breaker who values creativity over comportment. Her family owns a funeral home business, but she dreams of opening a flower shop. The financial and logistical impediments seem insurmountable, though, until she meets Della Bennett, a 96-year-old woman who's come into one of the Wilde Funeral Homes to arrange a homegoing for her husband. It turns out that she owns a brownstone in Harlem, and she offers to let Ricki rent out the bottom floor, which has room for both a shop and a small living space. Even with a fairy godmother, opening a new business is hard; she struggles to keep it afloat but draws media attention by placing her dazzling, inventive flower arrangements at sites made famous during the Harlem Renaissance. One February evening, she meets a mysterious man in a neighborhood garden full of night-blooming jasmine, just one of many hints that something magical is bringing them together. Ezra Walker is a traveling musician with courtly manners and an unbelievable secret. The book slowly eases into Ricki and Ezra's love story, with a secondary timeline set during the Harlem Renaissance providing hints about Ezra's tragic past. He knows he has no future with Ricki and tries to avoid her, but they're drawn together like magnets. It's a beautiful romance, tackling big ideas about the burden of family, the weight of time, and the gift of love. But for a novel with such a careful, meticulous unspooling of plot and characters, the ending is rushed, with the strangely passive lovers surrendering to the same forces of fate and time that initially brought them together. Richly layered characters give this romance broad crossover appeal.

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Starred review from January 1, 2024
Ricki Wilde, born into an Atlanta mortuary dynasty, rejects the family business, dreaming, instead, of becoming a floral designer. While working as a receptionist in the funeral home, she confides her dreams of opening a floral shop to Ms. Della, a 96-year-old widow who, like a fairy godmother, offers to rent her the ground floor of her Harlem brownstone. As Ricki struggles to make her business profitable, she keeps running into a handsome man, even when trying to avoid him. Back in 1923, Ezra "Breeze" Walker III (or IV) has just arrived in Harlem with his cousin after the Klan torched their Southern church during Sunday service, incinerating all the other members of their family and community. Self-taught, Breeze becomes a famous pianist, but in the early minutes of February 29, 1928, he becomes the victim of a curse. Ricki and Ezra will do whatever it takes to keep their love from being doomed, but how can they defeat the curse? Harlem, now and a century ago, makes for a fascinating setting for the story of Ricki and Ezra. Williams follows her best-selling Seven Days in June with a truly original romance that is quirky, suspenseful, and unforgettable.

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