Before We Say Goodbye (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, 4)

Before We Say Goodbye is the fourth book in Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s million-copy bestselling Before the Coffee Gets Cold series, translated from Japanese. Set around the magical Cafe Funiculi Funicula, it returns to the café’s famous legend: a secret form of time travel that offers visitors the chance to go back and meet someone again, perhaps for one last time.

The café’s extraordinary journey comes with strict rules and real risks. Travellers must have visited the café before, and they must return to the present before their coffee goes cold. Within these limits, a new group of visitors arrives, each drawn to a single moment they wish they could revisit.

Key details

• Book 4 in the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series
• By Toshikazu Kawaguchi
• Translated from Japanese
• Set at Cafe Funiculi Funicula

Synopsis

Regulars at Cafe Funiculi Funicula know the legend well, and many patrons have already used its secret time travel offering to reconnect with old flames, make amends with family, or visit loved ones. In this instalment, the café welcomes new visitors: a husband with something important left to say, a woman who could not bid her dog farewell, a woman who could not answer a proposal, and a daughter who drove her father away.

As they follow the café’s rules and race against cooling coffee, each traveller sets out to revisit one crucial moment in time.