Before the Coffee Gets Cold (5 book series) by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

The “Before the Coffee Gets Cold” series by Toshikazu Kawaguchi is a collection of poignant and thought-provoking novels set in a small, magical café in Tokyo. This café offers customers a unique opportunity to travel back in time, but with strict rules that ensure the experience is more about reflection than altering reality. The series captures themes of love, loss, regret, and hope.
Overview of the Series:
Before the Coffee Gets Cold
The first book introduces the café and its time-traveling premise. Readers meet a series of characters dealing with unresolved issues, learning lessons about life and relationships.
Tales from the Café
The second installment continues with new customers and their touching stories, as well as further exploring the lives of the café staff.
Before Your Memory Fades
This book shifts the setting to another branch of the magical café and delves deeper into emotional tales of past connections.
Before We Say Goodbye
The fourth book focuses on the bittersweet moments of farewells and the significance of closure in relationships.
Before We Forget Kindness
In the fifth book in the sensational Before the Coffee Gets Cold series translated from Japanese, the mysterious café where customers arrive hoping to travel back in time welcomes four new guests:

– The father who could not allow his daughter to get married
– A woman who couldn’t give Valentine’s Day chocolates to her loved one
– A boy who wants to show his smile to his divorced parents
– A wife holding a child with no name . . .

They must follow the café’s strict rules, however, and come back to the present before their coffee goes cold. Another moving and heartwarming tale from Toshikazu Kawaguchi, in Before We Forget Kindness our new visitors wish to go back into their past to move on their present, finding closure and comfort so they can embark on a beautiful future.
Key Features:
Magical Realism: The time-travel element is a metaphorical tool to reflect on human emotions and relationships.
Simple Yet Profound: Kawaguchi’s writing is straightforward, allowing the heartfelt themes to resonate deeply.
Character-Driven Stories: Each book focuses on individual stories while weaving in recurring characters.
Would you like a more detailed summary of any specific book, or help deciding which one to read first?