A Love Song for Ricki Wilde by Tia Williams

Loved this!

I really enjoy Tia Williams writing, there were so many beautiful quotes throughout this. I’ve listed some below but I’ve pages of them. I also have lots of the words Ricki used highlighted to add to words I love the sound of. She has some lovely ones, like ‘flaneuse’.

Ricki was a wonderful character and I found her to be super likable and I always enjoyed her POV’s but she was outshone by a fair few characters in this book. Ezra, Ms Della and Tuesday being the top three.

The Ezra and Ricki love story is gorgeous and magical, I loved the story of how Ezra came to be a ‘Perennial’ and as a result we got to learn about Breeze and The Harlem Renaissance. It made the book feel so much more atmospheric and those chapters were actually my favourite. It’s something I knew nothing about before reading this and it’s made me so curious about what sounds like a true golden time in New York!

Ms Della and her meeting Ricki also felt magical and as things unfolded it felt more and more special and poignant. Their meeting was very heavy on the kismet, and obviously so was her meeting Ezra but her meeting with Tuesday also felt like a special kind of destiny!

“Nothing seals tighter than best friends who’ve never had one.“

I adored her and would really like to read a story about her in the future!

Some quotes I loved:

“To me, love is like listening to an album. Some people skip to their favorite songs and ignore the rest. Other people listen to the entire album over and over, until it’s familiar and cherished and they know every note by heart. That’s how Dr. Bennett and I loved each other. He was music I could listen to forever.”

You can’t cheat grief, Ricki. You have to work with it. Accommodate it.”

“What they heard as frenzied abandonment was the sound of his rage. Their joyous release was his escape, his chance to outrun the memories that stalked him. Jazz was freedom. But grief was his fuel. It was that simple and that terrible.”

“And Breeze knew that what you haven’t reckoned with, you’re doomed to repeat. America was a ghost story with no end.”

“Ezra would argue that while most people were demons, most dogs were angels.”

“He noticed that when straight fellas spoke to ladies, they seemed to be talking to a different species. Once a man was attracted to a woman, she became a conquest, a challenge, an idea. Most men didn’t seem to like women very much.”

“Where did the melody come from?” she asked. “Tell me the story behind it.”

“You,” he murmured, his mouth against the top of her head. “You’re the story. I’ve been composing it for you for one hundred twenty-four years.”

Synopsis:

Leap years are a strange, enchanted time. And for some, even a single February can be life-changing.

Ricki Wilde has many talents, but being a Wilde isn’t one of them. As the impulsive, artistic daughter of a powerful Atlanta dynasty, she’s the opposite of her famous socialite sisters. Where they’re long-stemmed roses, she’s a an adorable bloom that’s actually a weed, born to float wherever the wind blows. In her bones, Ricki knows that somewhere, a different, more exciting life awaits her.

When regal nonagenarian, Ms. Della, invites her to rent the bottom floor of her Harlem brownstone, Ricki jumps at the chance for a fresh beginning. She leaves behind her family, wealth, and chaotic romantic decisions to realize her dream of opening a flower shop. And just beneath the surface of her new neighbourhood, the music, stories and dazzling drama of the Harlem Renaissance still simmers.

One evening in February as the heady, curiously off-season scent of night-blooming jasmine fills the air, Ricki encounters a handsome, deeply mysterious stranger who knocks her world off balance in the most unexpected way.

Set against the backdrop of modern Harlem and Renaissance glamour, A Love Song for Ricki Wilde is a swoon-worthy love story of two passionate artists drawn to the magic, romance, and opportunity of New York, and whose lives are uniquely and irreversibly linked.