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Before I Knew I Loved You

Before I Knew I Loved You

Magical RealismTime Travel
Published
2026
Language
English

Synopsis

The sixth book in Toshikazu Kawaguchi's Before the Coffee Gets Cold series returns to the Funiculi Funicula café in Tokyo, where one particular seat offers the chance to travel through time — so long as you return before the coffee gets cold. Four guests take that seat: a girl who wants to make amends with the mother she never accepted; a man who waited for a reply from his girlfriend and never heard from her; a woman anxious to travel ahead and see what her future holds; and a student who goes back to meet the father he lost years before. Memories are revisited, people are changed forever, and the book asks what you would do if you were offered the chance to go back in time.

Prose complexity
1/10

Vibe

HeartwarmingEmotionalReflectiveHopeful
Second ChanceMultiple POVs

Genres

Magical Realism Time Travel Literary Fiction Short Stories

About the author

川
川口俊和

Toshikazu Kawaguchi (川口俊和) is a Japanese novelist, playwright and theatrical director, born in Osaka on 3 April 1971. He began working in theatre at 22, going on to produce, write and direct for the group Sonic Snail before founding his own company, Kawaguchi Produce. His play Before the Coffee Gets Cold won the Grand Prize at the 10th Suginami Theatre Festival in 2013; at an editor's urging he adapted it into a novel, published in Japan in 2015. The book became an international bestseller a...