Before We Forget Kindness

The fifth book in Toshikazu Kawaguchi's Before the Coffee Gets Cold series returns to the Tokyo cafe where one seat lets visitors travel back in time, bound by the same rules as before: nothing done there can change the present, and the trip ends when the coffee goes cold.

Four new visitors take the seat: a father who couldn't accept his daughter's marriage; a woman who never gave someone the Valentine's Day chocolate she meant to; a boy who wants his divorced parents to see him smile again; and a mother holding a child she never named.

As in the earlier books, none of them can undo what happened — but each finds a way to make peace with it. Quiet and reflective in tone, the book continues the series' focus on family, regret, and unspoken feelings finally said.