A Fistful of Dreams

How far would you go to save someone you love, or reclaim the life that you’ve lost?  In this gripping true story of love, betrayal, heartbreak, and hope, Ingrid Ricks pulls readers into her  desperate dual quest to save her dad from the clutches of a West African criminal ring and regain the eyesight and life that has been stripped from her by a rare blinding eye disease.

Despite already being fleeced out of more than two million dollars, Ingrid’s Dad, an eighty-three year old bull-headed hustler from Utah, has been holed up in an Ivory Coast boarding room for nearly two years, lured there by the promise of a hundred-million-dollar score he’s been chasing for a decade.

While working every angle imaginable to convince the Dad she once worshipped and adored to stop his obsessive chase and return home, Ingrid is also obsessively chasing what she believes is the cure that will give her back her eyesight and the independence and identity she’s lost.

Convinced that she is on the verge of both saving her dad and seeing her world again, Ingrid goes all in—refusing to accept that her love isn’t enough to untangle her dad from his own destructive mess or that the eyesight miracle she’s desperate to access doesn’t currently exist. 

A Fistful of Dreams is a wrenching, cautionary tale about the devastating consequences of becoming consumed by loss, desperation, and despair. But it is also an inspiring portrayal of forgiveness, resilience, and possibility.

Ultimately, Ingrid’s story delivers a powerful message of hope driven by her realization that she has a choice: she can continue to chase the life that she’s lost or embrace the beautiful life she has.