Before Your Memory Fades A Novel

Some questions stay with you, don’t they? The ones that surface on quiet evenings, when the tide is out and the light goes golden. What would I change, if I could go back?

That’s the gentle heart of Before Your Memory Fades, the third novel in Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s international bestselling Before the Coffee Gets Cold series. This time, we travel to the hillside of Mount Hakodate in northern Japan, where Cafe Donna Donna sits with its dazzling views of the port. Like its sister cafe in Tokyo, this little spot offers something rather extraordinary: the chance to travel through time.

The rules, of course, remain. And so do the consequences.

Here you’ll meet four new souls, each carrying a quiet ache:

• A daughter who resents the parents who left her too soon
• A comedian longing for his beloved and the dreams they shared
• A younger sister consumed by her grief
• A young man who realizes, too late, how much he loved his childhood friend

Beautifully translated from the Japanese by Geoffrey Trousselot, this is wistful, warm-hearted storytelling at its finest. The kind of book you read in a single sitting by the window, watching the boats come in.

New to the series? Not to worry. Each novel stands tenderly on its own, though we suspect you’ll want to read them all.

Stop in, browse a while, and let this one find you. It’s a small book with an enormous heart. The perfect companion for a salty, rainy afternoon in the cove.

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