Tales From the Cafe

Sticking to the same formula as the first volume this is another delightful trip to the Funiculi Funicula coffee shop with its unchanging decor and strange rules for time travel. The construction of the stories is always clever, especially given the restrictions imposed by those rules, although perhaps inevitably there is are a lot of tragic deaths involved. The nice thing is that every time travel journey improves the happiness of someone and sometimes both parties come out better for it. I also like the way that the journeys are all independent, carried out for their own reasons but that the story as a whole advances as we learn more of the lives of the coffee shop staff. I did sometimes struggle with the names (even Miki gets confused them…) but the helpful chart at the front of the book proved invaluable - every book should have one! We’ve now got someone new in the chair so it will be interesting to see whether we get their back story in the next volume. A lovely series,…