The Library Of Heartbeats by Laura Imai Messina

From the bestselling author of The Phone Box at the Edge of the World comes a powerful, moving novel of grief, hope, friendship, and love. Based on a real archive on an island in Japan, where people travel to record their heartbeats, this story explores the idea that to find what you have lost, you must listen to your heart. On the peaceful Japanese island of Teshima stands a library of heartbeats, where visitors from around the world come to have their heartbeats collected and recorded. In this small, isolated building, the heartbeats of both the living and the deceased continue to echo. Meanwhile, in the ancient city of Kamakura, a forty-year-old illustrator named Shuichi meets a lonely eight-year-old named Kenta, who wanders like a shadow around Shuichi's recently deceased mother's house. As their trust grows and they discover they share a bond that will tie them together for life, their journey leads them to Tesh