Chichima Cherry’s JUST LIKE OLD TIMES is a book that offers romance readers plenty of fantasy wish-fulfillment and intense, sensual heat. The heroine, Tristyn, is a successful, beautiful, and smart African-American woman, a professional who’s about to interview for (and gets) her dream job, with good friends and caring family behind her. Her love interest, Trey, is a caring, devoted, gorgeous family man, great in bed, with a warm heart and a deep desire to please–nearly the ideal man, in fact. Nearly, because the one thing the poor guy is lacking in is basic communications skills–if he’d managed to actually talk to the woman he supposedly loved deeply seven years ago about important developments in his life, they would never have split up at all. It’s not clear at all why he doesn’t tell Tristyn what was going on the moment they’re in the process of getting back together again, either–it’s not as if he’s done anything he ought to be ashamed of, other than ghosting her. Still, that’s not an uncommon problem in romance novels.
Certainly the sparks fly left and right between Tristyn and Trey whenever they’re in the same room, and the sex scenes are as passionate as any reader could hope for. The secondary characters are well-developed and interesting, and there are a couple of subplots which add additional romantic tenderness to the main story, and offer the potential for possible sequels. The story goes back and forth in time, allowing the reader to gradually understand why Trey left, and his reasons–while nothing a normal person would not usually discuss as a matter of course with a sweetheart–are at least good ones, that leave him looking better in the reader’s eyes and not worse. The plot is a bit predictable and certain problems are a bit too easily solved – among other things, there could have been a bit more dramatic conflict with respect to the choice Tristyn has to make between her current boyfriend and Trey, and a bit more reserve on Tristyn’s part until she got the explanation she thoroughly deserved. Still, for readers looking for hot, sensual wish-fulfillment romance, JUST LIKE OLD TIMES will hit the mark beautifully.
Chichima Cherry’s JUST LIKE OLD TIMES is a hot, steamy romance more notable for its intense sensuality than for complexity of plot–but what it does, it does very well.
~Catherine Birzer for IndieReader