A Love Song for Ricki Wilde was an absolute ride!

I don’t want to give too many details away about the plot because I definitely think this is one you should know very little about before going into it. That being said what I do think needs to be known is that this leans heavily on magical realism and it took me quite a while to figure out whether I was making that up or if it was actually an element of the story. Another thing to note is that this book follows a timeline in Harlem during the 20s, and I absolutely enjoyed its focus on history and music.

The relationships that Ricki builds in this new city were my absolute favorite part of the story. Ms. Della and Tuesday were quite literally so funny but also the definition of “ride or die.” I love the idea of a found family and the two women are exactly that for Ricki—I live for female friendships.

Although I enjoyed the romance aspect, since there wasn’t much development until 35-40% into the book, it didn’t have me hooked. That being said I still loved Ezra’s character and I was fighting back tears as we got to the end of the story.

My main issue, and really only issue, with this book was the pacing, I felt like so much was happening at the beginning that I was waiting for “the love story 100 years in the making” to finally kick off. However once the story took off, it really took off! We also get a cameo from a special couple and it had me smiling ear to ear.

Bravo, Applause! Tia Williams is back and better than ever with her with newest novel A Love Song For Ricki Wilde. This book, this book had me completely mesmerized, submerged and suspended turning page after page until the very end. A Love Song For Ricki Wilde is a highly engaging, irresistibly charming book. A huge thank you to Grand Central Publishing, the author and NetGalley for the advanced digital copy of the book.

Ricki Wilde is the polar opposite of her wealthy, affluent, socialite and often times judgmental family. Ricki is a talented, artistic and sometimes very impetuous young woman. All she longs for is something different, a more exciting life where she can just be her free, creative self. When she meets Ms. Della a regal, nonagenarian who offers her a chance to do just that up in her Harlem Brownstone, Ricki jumps at the chance to follow her dream of opening up her own floral shop. So ensues her fresh start in a new neighborhood that’s filled with intriguing people, magical stories, and brilliancy.

And then on one cold February night Ricki comes across a mysterious, handsome man while visiting a city garden and her whole world is turned upside down. She finds herself caught up in an all encompassing, rapturous love story like no other.

Tia Williams is an incredible storyteller. With her latest novel she masterfully blends history, magical/realism, mystery and romance into a dual timeline story, which all plays out in the backdrop of modern day and renaissance Harlem, it is absolutely breathtaking. A Love Song For Ricki Wilde is an enchanting, poignant, spellbinding romance that is not to be missed.

Thank you to NetGalley, author Tia Williams, and Grand Central Publishing for providing me with a free ARC in exchange for my honest opinion!

I love Tia Williams' writing!! I was so hooked on Seven Days in June last year and A Love Song for Ricki Wilde just confirmed that. This book is hilarious, tender, sexy, raw, and engrossing. I was sucked in and flew through this book wanting to know what happened next. Yes, it was a bit cheesy. Yes, it was predictable. I think the book could have benefitted from being a bit longer for sure. But I loved Ricki and Ezra lots, so it all worked out. Ricki as a character is just SO full of life, and the way Williams writes her interactions with her sisters, Della, and Tuesday is so entertaining. When she writes about Ricki and Ezra together, their connection is believable and feels real, even when the situation is magical. I will say I wasn't expecting this to have fantasy elements, so I think I would have personally enjoyed it more if it did not, but I loved the leap year element of magic, and I loved the few chapters written during the Harlem Renaissance. In fact, I would have loved even more of those! Regardless, I had a blast reading this, and I'm already excited to see what Williams writes next.

This being released during a leap year is perfect! Although the book starts off slow it is extremely important. You need to move low and slow through this one to understand and receive everything that you need through for this.
This is my first Tia Williams and I cannot wait to read more.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the egalley in exchange for an honest review.

Let me start by saying that I thought I would dislike this book. People were saying it was weird, and I didn't care for the last Tia Williams book I read, but this one right here is DIFFERENT in every magical way possible.

We are first introduced to Ricki, who comes from a "perfect" family, but they all have baggage and constantly dump it on Ricki because she's the "imperfect" one. Readers will hate her family, especially the sisters. Ricki is a jack of trades. When I say that, I mean she does it all, then goes and does another thing to add to her resume. Ricki is a bomb ass creative florist; I mean, her mind is amazing, and she falls into her influencer era unexpectedly by just being herself, which rewards her well. I loved seeing this all happen throughout the book.

Ezra Walker is then introduced, and he carries pain and music. His character has been struggling for decades; he has the most going on out of the two and is ultimately the reason the novel packs multiple genres into one novel. I loved how his character added nodes to notable people in each decade over time and brought the Harlem Renaissance era to life. This story gave historical fiction, magical realism, mystery/suspense, and romance in that order. Because of this, I'm not sure I really felt the romance heavily in this one, but for me, the historical fiction part carried this story, and for good reason, because the reader needed the past to explain the present, and without it, we'd all be lost.

Ricki and Ezra are destined to be together, but they have to figure out how to be together, if that makes sense. Their love is instant, but this time I wasn't necessarily mad at that; I just didn't feel enough chemistry between the two because of it. As I noted before, it seems like there are too many genres in one pot, and other genres overshadow the romance element constantly. It isn't an equal flow between all of them. So, if you're looking for something that gives you the feel of previous works by Williams or something that makes you kick your feet and giggle, this may not be the one.

That being said, I really loved this one by Tia. I liked that it was different, and I feel like it would translate well into an on-screen film. Please skip the bad wigs this time. I loved the supporting characters, Ms. Della, Tuesday, and even Mr. Bennett (men need to take some notes out of his book). Ms. Della added elderly wisdom, and Tuesday added humor, and it just all flowed so smoothly with the storyline.

Favorite Quotes:
- "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."

The voices of the narrators of this book (Mela Lee and Preston Butler) added to the magical feeling of everything for me. Their voices conveyed humor, love, and grief to the listener.

Thank you, Netgalley and Grand Central Pub, for the e-ARC and the ALC.

Ricki Wilde isn't like the rest of her family. I knew I was going to be rooting for her right from the first chapter. Her sisters are insufferable. I'm glad she packed up her things, her flowers, and her dreams and moved to New York. The characters are what made this book so good. Ricki's new friendship with Tuesday is what all platonic friendships should strive to be. I loved Tuesday's rough edges and how she 100% had Ricki's back. On to the love interest, the way the connection between Ricki and the mystery man played out was refreshing. It was like they were pulled to each other by forces other than just lust and romance. I loved the way Tia Williams incorporated the past black history of Harlem and intertwined it into the present-day narrative .. and when I say present- day, it legit is really set in present-day. February 2024. It was a bit surreal to read a book set in February 2024, especially with a heavy nod at it being leap year, a week before February 2024 was actually beginning. Um, also, that piano! 🔥🔥🔥

Tia williams did not disappoint with this book. The moment Ricki and Ezra were in the same atmosphere you could feel a shift. The way these two were magnetically drawn together was everything to swoon about. I love the Harlem theme, I loved how the past played an important role in the now, I loved the secondary characters Tuesday and Ms. Della. This book was magical and I absorbed it deep within. I’m definitely a fan of Ms. Williams and I can’t wait for what’s next.

Thank you to Netgalley and Grand Central Publishing for an ARC copy

𝑩𝒐𝒐𝒌 𝑹𝒆𝒗𝒊𝒆𝒘📕
🌟🌟🌟💫

Thank you @netgalley and @grandcentralpub for this ARC. Happy publication day to author @tiawilliamswrites.

I'll start by saying for some reason I struggle with time travel plots. However, I really enjoyed the backdrop of the Harlem renaissance era. I went to school in New York and loved Harlem. So it felt good to try to envision the different places talked about in the book. I mean Sylvias is a staple and made me miss Harlem. This book spanned many genres, and the plot was good. I did feel that it was so much going on that some parts were underdeveloped. I was hoping for more in certain areas of the plot.
𝓡𝓮𝓪𝓭 𝓽𝓱𝓲𝓼 𝓸𝓷𝓮 𝓲𝓯 𝔂𝓸𝓾 𝓵𝓲𝓴𝓮:
➡️slow burn
💓fated romance characters
🗽historical fiction (Harlem renaissance)
⏳dual time lines
🌍world building
The book is centered around Rickie Wilde the female lead. She is a Wild child that doesn’t fit in to her family's dynasty box. She beats to her own drum, and I loved it. Ezra the mysterious magical male lead was her soulmate. I really didn’t take to his character until midway through the book. His musical genius was fun to read. I kept envisioning his talent to be a modern day @jonbatiste or @pjmorton. Look we all know New Orleans jazz is where it’s at 🥰. It’s a wild ride with these two as they try to figure out how to break an immortality curse and save each other in the process. The secondary characters I loved. Mrs della is that grandmother everyone needs. She was literally Rickie’s saving grace 🙏🏽. Tuesday is that girlfriend that we all need. You need at least one Tuesday, the epitome of ride or die. The ending was sweet and heartwarming. I love a book that leaves the reader with a smile on their face.

❓what’s your favorite Tia Williams book? The perfect find.
#tiawilliams #alovesongforrickiwilde #pjmorton #jonbaptiste🎶 #jazz #harlem #sylvias #romance #historicalfiction #fantasy

The way this book so deeply hurt my feelings while also making me laugh out loud should be studied. Ricki Wilde is a girl after my own heart and this story is such a gift. The narrative was so beautifully and masterfully crafted. I had no idea how things were going to work out, but I had faith! I loved this book so much and don’t know how any romance can top it this year.

I really liked what Tia Williams did in this book with the touch of magic we got in the story. This is a dual POV and the part of the story that was set against the Harlem Renaissance was my favorite part of the two POVs. I enjoyed our main couple together and had a good time with the little found family that Ricki had carved out for herself in New York and I was definitely cheering for Ricki when she finally stood up to her sisters.

I did find her family to be written in a way that felt like a big caricature and since the book starts out with a scene of them the writing of them did almost turn me off from continuing, but definitely glad I didn't because they did not end up being a big part of the book and the writing in the rest of the book was not an issue.

I also didn't love how much time at the beginning of the book was spent with Ricki with someone else so wish that hadn't been as drawn out. I did not mind the pace of the actual relationship though as I do love a slow burn

WHAT I LOVED :
The first half of this book! The story was engaging, the dual pov was intriguing, the writing was beautiful and the chemistry between the mcs was starting out on point!! I really loved the ode to the Harlem Renaissance with the history of the music and culture. The descriptions were so beautiful and I loved the historical aspects brought to life with such rich imagery. I also really enjoyed the found family in this one.

WHAT I DIDN’T LOVE :
The second half of the book was where the story lost me. I don’t want to go into detail with the plot, but I will say there was an element of magical realism that came into play and it just felt off. What started out as a beautiful and important story to me developed into something that seemed silly and out of place in the second half. The second half also happened quickly and there was a lot going on. I felt like I didn’t get to feel the emotional impact that I was supposed to experience. There were so many topics that the author was touching on that there wasn’t enough time to flesh everything out and I felt like several parts of the story needed more development.

I really wanted to love this and I devoured the first half thinking it was going to be incredible so I am very conflicted with my thoughts on this one!

A Love Song for Ricki Wilde

Publication date 2/6/24

By Tia Williams-Read Seven Days in June, gave it 4 ⭐. I loved Shane and Eva's cameo

🏃🏾‍♀️ Run time: 11:42

🙏🏾Thanks to NetGalley, Hachette Audio, and Grand Central Publishing for the ALC and ARC💜 ! I voluntarily give an honest review and all opinions expressed are mine alone.

The narrators are Mela Lee and Preston Butler all characters read them. I believe the voices fit the characters with standouts of Ms. Della, Ricki, and Ezra. Their voices were the most distinct, but I could easily tell the difference between all characters. The reading style did bring the story to life and the pacing was great and flowed easily with the story. The narration and the author were in sync, and they fit together perfectly.

The audiobook's flow was great. The narrator paused and announced every time a new chapter came. The book had a table of contents which helped me follow along with the e-book and audio.

Ricki Wilde has never fit into her family and their business, the Wilde Funeral Dynasty in Atlanta. She's offered an apartment by Ms. Della(think fairy godmother) in Harlem where she opens her own flower shop "Wilde Things." She meets a stranger Ezra Walker who takes her breathe away, and they battle through a love curse that spans one hundred years.

Overall, the romance was breathtaking with the Harlem Renaissance and Harlem, New York as a character. Their love story was epically told in dual timelines- full of art, magic, and so many flower puns.

My recommendation is to read the audiobook with the eBook (if you can) because you can picture the characters more vividly.

Rating 5/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This book was unexpected. I went in anticipating a typical romance but got so much more. This book had magical realism and music history organically woven into the story in a way that surprisingly worked. Even being able to anticipate where the story would take me did not lessen the beauty of the journey. Tia Williams does an amazing job of writing flawed characters that are at the same time incredibly endearing.

My one complaint was the storyline with her family and sisters. It seemed unnecessary and added no value to the story. On the flip side, I loved that she found a home with Della.

A Love Song for Ricki Wilde surprised me in all the best ways. Williams excels at writing romances with layers that push against the genres edges. I loved how Williams told this story with two Harlems, the Harlem that Ricki feels drawn to and the Harlem of the Harlem Renaissance that is now hidden by gentrification. I loved the characters in this novel, especially the women. All of them pushed against expectations of others in trying to build the life they wanted, which looked different generations apart. I flew through this book. Huge thanks to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for access to the eARC!

February is #blackhistorymonth and I love supporting black writers even more profoundly this month (though I make it a goal to always support authors of color when I can).

I fell in love with @tiawilliamswrites when I read Seven Days in June - a book still on my mind after a long time away from it….and A Love Song for Ricki Wilde has done the same and left me wanting more and more from Tia! Her writing is truly exquisite.

This book has left me in my feelings - weeping for the ending that tied everything together creating a 5 star masterpiece! Not only is this a love letter to Harlem but the chemistry between the main characters, Ricki and Ezra, is something we should all want in our life - that cosmic pull from someone else’s heart preventing us from functioning unless they are near. I love that there is deep romance misted with magical realism and a little historical fiction too. The supporting characters, Ms Della, Tuesday and Rickis’ family are equally as memorable enhancing the story even further.

Ricki reminds me so much of myself, a little black sheep of the family and the one who succeeds despite what others believe she’s capable of. Thank you to @netgalley + @grandcentralpub for the ARC

Why did a silly goofy little magical realism romance make me tear up at the end? Because Tia Williams wrote it and knows how to pull at some daggum heartstrings.

I was hooked immediately and had a hard time putting the book down. It kept me dying to know more. I also enjoyed the flashbacks and current nods to Harlem. It made me want to look up music and history from a century ago. Anyway, it's kind of hard to put into words how I felt about this book, but what you really need to know is that it isn't just a romance, it is a book about found family, proving yourself, and becoming who you were meant to be. And I really liked it.

Thanks to Netgalley and Grand Central for the e-ARC!

This was my first 5-star review of the year, and I saved it for a good one. I loved this book and was glad I didn't have any information about it other than who wrote it.

If there were ever a book to read about how to live your life to the fullest while also bringing in the history of an era that most people don't know about, this would be the book to read. The combination of the history of the Harlem Renaissance with one of the MMC and then the FMC who just wanted to live her life her own way was perfect.

Part of me wants a sequel to see how their later life panned out.

This is a gorgeous romance that I simply could not put down! I fell in love with this author's writing in her last novel, and this book definitely lived up to the expectations I had due to her past work. I was completely immersed and invested in the story, characters, and setting, and think this is just simply a truly special and unique read that everyone will enjoy.

I went into this blind and I'm so glad I did. I loved this book so much - its beautiful and heart warming, but also sad. I was sobbing by the end. Tia Williams is an auto buy author for me, and I'd highly recommend this book to everyone.

Thank you to Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley for the e-ARC.

✨ Review ✨ A Love Song for Ricki Wilde, by Tia Williams, narrated by Mela Lee, Preston Butler

This is THE book you need for your 2024 LEAP YEAR. The book centers on Leap Years a month of magic that comes around but once every four years, and it connects to ideas of voodoo, love, and time.

Ricki Wilde (Richard Wilde Jr., her father's namesake after it became clear that they'd only have daughters and this made me lol) breaks off from her funeral home magnate family who are all sort of ridiculous and not very supportive of her. She moves to Harlem after meeting Della, a wonderful older woman who becomes her new adoptive grandma, and she opens a flower shop in the lower level of Della's brownstone. When Ricki encounters a mysterious man, she can't stop thinking about him, and increasingly, their paths keep crossing...and thus their magnetic pull reveals itself.

I loved the silliness of this book - the puns, Ricki's ability to joke around and poke fun, and the loveliness of her relationship with Ms. Della (and Della's bucket list). The first chapter of this book alone had me grinning!

I appreciated the mystery behind the magic and time and that I couldn't quite figure it all out until the middle of the book.

I loved the element of found family and friendship.

I also adored how this wove the history of Harlem in with the challenges neighborhoods like this face with gentrification. Ricki's curation of bouquets to highlight these spaces, many now lost to history, was an especially lovely treat.

I think because this book was more complex, it didn't have the same pull for me as Seven Days in June. Its magic was subtler and slower and not so obvious. I still really enjoyed this though and found much to love!

The narration was excellent - their voices brought depth and emotion and passion to these characters and I just didn't want to push pause. I started on ebook and never went back, I was so captivated by the audio!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 (4.5)
Genre: historical fiction, contemporary m/f romance, magical realism
Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
Setting: Harlem, past and present
Pub Date: February 6, 2024

Read this if you like:
⭕️ flowers
⭕️ leap years
⭕️ Harlem and black history & culture (especially music throughout the last century!)
⭕️ found family

Thanks to Grand Central Publishing, Hachette Audio, and #netgalley for the gifted advanced copy/ies of this book!