Tia Williams’s A Love Song For Ricki Wilde: Magical Realism and Romance in Harlem
I’ve been pushing myself to read more of my contemporaries so I can stay up to date with the kinds of stories readers are enjoying right now. I’ve always been drawn to the classics, but much of that writing style can be outdated. Because I’ve been obsessed with author interviews, I was familiar with Tia Williams and her writing background. I was impressed that it took twenty years before she could become a full-time writer. She’s known for writing romance, so in addition to reading a new author, I’d also be diving into a genre I haven’t read since college. Williams described her 2024 novel, A Love Song for Ricki Wilde, as having some magical realism, so I knew that was the perfect place to start.
Right away, it was easy to get into the story and like the protagonist, Ricki Wilde, a 28-year-old florist from a black affluent family in Atlanta. She has spunk and follows the beat of her own artistic and creative heart. She accepts the invitation of Ms. Della, a ninety-six-year-old widow, who bought a brownstone in Harlem, New York, and offers to rent Ricki the basement. There, Ricki can open a flower shop and live in the back studio apartment. I appreciate Williams’s desire to write joyful black stories; it’s not fair to think that stories with people of color can only involve trauma. Black history can’t and shouldn’t be forgotten, and she does a great job weaving tragic elements into the narrative that are necessary as we follow two timelines—the present with Ricki and the other with her soulmate, Ezra “Breeze” Walker, a gifted jazz pianist who’s from the 1920’s. It was an exciting page turner, waiting for the magic to reveal itself. I kept wondering how Ezra, who inevitably runs into Ricki, could have been around for the Harlem Renaissance in the ‘20’s.
Ricki is a sucker for puns. She originally wanted to call her flower shop, “Botany Flowers Lately?” but couldn’t trademark a question mark. I had to say those three words out loud to get it: “Bought any flowers lately?” I wasn’t a huge fan of all the pun-making both Ricki and Ezra share, but that one is pretty good. I related to Ricki’s entrepreneurial and artistic journey, using Instagram to promote her skills and draw people to her shop. She’s the black sheep of the family and the youngest. Her family owns funeral homes, and it’s admirable that she doesn’t take the easy path that’s laid out for her. She, in fact, does the opposite, leaving Atlanta, away from her family who don’t understand her, and moving to Harlem to start a new life without her father’s money. I loved that Ricki was her own person and had such a distinct style. I loved Williams’s descriptions of her outfits. Ricki is an artist through and through.
“A Love Song for Ricki Wilde was a fun read. It was exciting getting the tingles as Ricki and Ezra’s intense and passionate romance unfurls.”
I was interested in how the magic would appear in the story. It does take about three-quarters into the novel to receive that backstory, but the suspense kept me hooked. For this novel, Williams draws from her Creole background to write about the magic of voodoo, a practice that has certainly been villainized. I liked learning that, like any practice, there’s a good and bad side. 1920’s Ezra’s fiancée, Felice Fabienne, was a hoodoo practitioner who at first used her gifts in botanical magic to heal and help people. That all changed when she discovered a mysterious book filled with dark voodoo spells. That talent, coupled with her mental illness, which in the 1920’s was too early to diagnose, is a catastrophic mix. She curses Ezra to a life of immortality; no one will remember him as he meanders through life purposelessly. Stripping an artist of the ability to leave a mark and create a legacy is about the worst fate I can think of. That causes Ezra to lose his will to live and play the piano until he meets Ricki. With another flower pun I liked, Williams creates her own twist on the immortal character. Felice’s curse turns Ezra into a Perennial. A Perennial can’t die or age. I love that Williams uses the mystical magic of the real world, like the strangeness of Leap Day, to explain how this curse could come to be. I love fantastical elements like that.
A Love Song for Ricki Wilde was a fun read. It was exciting getting the tingles as Ricki and Ezra’s intense and passionate romance unfurls. You’ll fall in love with Ezra, a true gentleman, who even apologizes for cursing in front of a lady. My favorite thing about him, and of the book, is that he’s described as the Forrest Gump of music. I love pop culture and had to look up some of Williams’s references. Ezra’s had a hand in every monumental black musical moment that’s fun to visit in his retelling to Ricki. He was even involved in Ricki’s favorite Stevie Wonder album, Journey Through The Secret Life of Plants. How could she not fall in love with a man like that? When he meets Ricki in 2024, he’s now been alive for almost a century. But his curse goes one step further than having to live for an eternity. I’ll leave the life and death stakes spoiler-free; however, you will close the book with a smile on your face.
It was eye-opening to see the similarities between A Love Song for Ricki Wilde, a novel with an all-black cast, and my debut novel, Bendito, led by an all-Latino cast. If you’ve read and liked Williams’s novel, I think you would like Bendito as well. They both have magic (my story features Santería, the good magic, and Palo Santo, the dark magic) and follow a young, ambitious heroine on a creative endeavor. My protagonist, Maritza Cruz, dreams of stepping out of her famous boyfriend’s shadow, Omi Rivera, a talented painter. She independently creates a magazine she names Bendito and turns to a santero, a priest of Santería, when things don’t go as she imagined. Not to give too much away, but something like a curse ensues after her fateful meeting with one of the most gifted santeros and card readers, Baz Santiago. Like Williams’s harnessing of old magic in the world during such a rare time as a Leap Year, I set my story during the Y2K, culminating on New Year’s Eve. I didn’t write a romance, though, so while you’ll fall in love with Omi, one of the greatest artists of his generation, I’m not sure if you’ll smile when you close the book.
Maria Molina is a writer of Puerto Rican and Ecuadorian descent living in Pennsylvania with her husband, Albert, and their son, Sebastian. She writes essays on pop culture, personal growth, and parenting a child with autism. Maria is the author of the novella All Souls’ Day and the short novel Bendito. She was featured in Autism Parenting Magazine.