Before I knew I loved you is the sixth book in the bestselling Funiculi Funicula Cafe series, a tender time-slip romance set in a cozy Tokyo cafe where a special seat offers the chance to revisit someone you love. This collection of luminous stories about love, loss, and second chances is ideal for adult readers who enjoy character-driven fiction with a hint of magical realism. The tone is comforting, hopeful, and intimate, inviting you to believe in love's power to endure across time.
Inside these pages, four guests bring distinct wishes, and the cafe's rules guide their journeys as they explore what could have been. The writing is graceful and accessible, weaving memory and emotion into a seamless narrative that feels both intimate and universal. The experience is calm and meditative, with scenes that glow like a quiet evening in Tokyo.
Written with sensitivity, the stories unfold through thoughtful conversations, small domestic details, and moments of quiet revelation. If you love Before I knew I loved you, you’ll appreciate how each tale revisits love from a new angle, while the overall arc reassures that certain connections are stronger than time. Translated from Japanese, the prose preserves the original warmth and lyricism, inviting readers to slow down and savor every moment.
- Four intimate time-slip stories set in the Funiculi Funicula Cafe
- The cafe’s legendary seat and the rule: return before the coffee gets cold
- Themes of love, memory, forgiveness, and second chances
- Lyrical, character-driven storytelling translated from Japanese
- Quiet, comforting pace that invites reflection and hope
After finishing Before I knew I loved you, readers are left with a warm sense of connection and a belief that memories can keep loved ones close across time. It offers not just a read, but a reassuring reminder that love can endure, heal, and transform us long after the final page.
The sixth book in the multi-million-copy bestselling series about a cosy Japanese cafe that offers its visitors the chance to travel back in time.
In a special seat in a fabled Tokyo cafe, you’re offered something irresistible – not just a warm, comforting coffee, but the chance to go back in time to revisit the ones you love . . .
In Before I knew I loved you, Toshikazu Kawaguchi takes us back to the warm heart of the mysterious Funiculi Funicula Cafe, with another four guests whose luminous stories of love, lost and won again, will reaffirm your belief in its eternal potential. In this book, we meet:
- The girl who couldn’t call her mother, and yearns to reconnect with her
- The man who waited for a reply from his girlfriend, and never heard from her
- The woman anxious to travel ahead to know what her future holds
- The student who travels back to meet his father again, who passed away many years before.
Yet the same rules always apply – you must return before the coffee gets cold. And while it does, memories are revisited, people are changed for ever, and the enduring power of love transcends the boundaries of time.
The sixth book in the phenomenal, bestselling series, translated from Japanese, Before I knew I loved you asks the irresistible question: what would you do if you were offered the chance to go back in time?
