A love song one hundred years in the making…
Leap years are a strange, enchanted time, and for some people, it will change their whole life:
Ricki Wilde has always felt like she was born into the wrong family. As the daughter of a funeral home dynasty, she is the complete opposite of her poised, excelling, and perfectly quaffed sisters. Instead, Ricki is creative, spontaneous, and dramatic. She knows that a different kind of life must be waiting for her just around the corner.
When Ricki meets the regal 90-something Ms. Della, they have an instant connection. Ms. Della invites her to rent the bottom floor of her Harlem brownstone, and Ricki knows this is her chance for something new. She leaves behind her family, wealth and disastrous romantic decisions to live her dream of owning her own flower shop. In February 2024, with the magic of the leap year and the heady, unseasonable scent of night blooming jasmine filling the air, Ricki encounters a mysterious, handsome stranger who will knock her world off balance.
In 1928—many leap years earlier— Ezra “Breeze” Walker is the toast of the town. After fleeing a brutally painful past in the South and moving to Harlem, he’s now one of the most celebrated jazz pianists of the Renaissance. In Harlem, there’s beauty, talent, and music on every block, but Breeze can’t shake the grief he left behind. When he becomes romantically entangled with Felice Fabre, a volatile and irresistible dancer who’s also been rumored to dabble in Voodoo, his life is turned upside down.
Like so many before them, Ricki and Breeze are both drawn to Harlem—to the magic, romance, and opportunity—and their lives are uniquely linked. A Love Song for Ricki Wilde is an epic, swoon worthy love story, one that’s perhaps been a hundred years in the making…