The second book in Michiko Aoyama's healing series was published on February 17, 2026. Hot Chocolate on Thursday is a collection of short stories translated into English from Japanese. In each story the characters reappear, usually as a third tier character. Many of the characters were part of the author's Matcha on Monday collection of short stories with the Marble Café also reappearing as a setting.
Synopsis
Across a bridge in a quiet neighborhood in Tokyo, a seasonal cherry blossom sits on the river. Nearby is the Marble Cafe, where a woman writes in a notebook and a young waiter prepares her favorite hot drink. Both wonder about each other and about the other lies of the clientele who frequent this charming little cafe behind the trees...
Without even realizing it, we may touch and change someone else's life.
Taking a walk along the river, cooking the best tamagoyaki, ordering hot chocolate, forgetting to remove our nail polish... The small, everyday acts that we do can lead to unexpected encounters and reverberate far beyond your own circle and ultimately make a difference in the world.
Hot Chocolate on Thursday is a tapestry of slice-of-life moments that each open and close with a woman ordering her regular hot chocolate at the mysterious Marble Cafe. What happens in between will touch and swell your heart, as we connect with a community of untold unfolding lives.
My Thoughts
Hot Chocolate on Thursday is a light hearted book that is one of the author's healing fiction novels. In these stories the main character learns how to improve his or her self. Each chapter is a new short story. My favorite one is A Saint's Righteous Path. In this story two friends meet for tea at the Marble Café. Risa can't wait to tell her unnamed friend that she is getting married. She confesses that her fiancé is still married but is getting a divorce. Knowing how these relationships never work out the friend cautions Risa. A year or so later she receives a wedding invitation from Risa. The story title is strange. Risa states during their conversation that she has always tried to walk a straight path in her life. I guess Risa is the saint. However, walking straight means not dating married men.
I like that the chapters are short. It is easy to read a chapter before falling asleep at night without having to stay up late to finish. It seemed that the chapters were shorter than those in Matcha on Monday. I noticed that the stories do not give details of the character's internal processing of an event in their lives. In Matcha we read about the character's internal musings concerning something that occurred to them and helped them grow as a person. Both Hot Chocolate and Matcha have twelve stories so I'm not sure why I feel the stories were shorter in Hot Chocolate.
Each story has a title page with a color written on it. I couldn't figure out why the author did this. In an interview in Seattle she explained:
Writing a book is mysterious to me,” she said. “The first and last line come first, so I had the first line of chapter 1 and the last line of chapter 12, connected with 12 colors. I really wanted to finish chapter 12 when I started writing.”I was into drawing with pastels when writing this book. The challenge with drawing this way is that when you use different types of material to color on, there are different ways it can come out. One color I used was called “skin color,” though it’s closer to beige. I didn’t use that name for the color because all skin colors are different.The publisher asked me to do some drawings for the book, so I started drawing something quickly with pastels, but it wasn’t used.
What is healing fiction? I had to google it to find a definition. Healing fiction is a cozy, low stakes literary genre featuring quiet, emotional stories about ordinary people dealing with grief, loneliness and burnout. The genre originated in Japan and Korea during the COVID-19 pandemic. It always has a humble setting, a little whimsy and low conflict.
I loved the book and highly recommend it! 5 out of 5 stars.
