The Library of Heartbeats by Laura Imai Messina

 The Library of Heartbeats

 by Laura Imai Messina

The Library of Heartbeats by Laura Imai Messina 

was published on 4th January 2024. 

My thanks to the author and publisher for sending me a copy to review and to Compulsive Book Tours for inviting me to take part on the tour.

Synopsis

To find what you have lost, you must listen to your heart . . .

On the peaceful Japanese island of Teshima there is a library of heartbeats, a place where the heartbeats of visitors from all around the world are collected. In this small, isolated building, the heartbeats of people who are still alive or have already passed away continue to echo.

Several miles away, in the ancient city of Kamakura, two lonely souls Shuichi, a forty-year-old illustrator, who returns to his home-town to fix up the house of his recently deceased mother, and eight-year-old Kenta, a child who wanders like a shadow around Shuichi's house.

Day by day, the trust between Shuichi and Kenta grows until they discover they share a bond that will tie them together for life. Their journey will lead them to Teshima and to the library of heartbeats . . .

My Review

This is a beautiful story of love, grief, friendship and survival that is wonderfully written in an incredibly thought provoking way  to ensure that the reader takes something special and unique away with them.

For me there was something beautiful in every aspect of the story that gave a sense of calmness and allowed for grief to move on from a tragedy that affected the whole of Shuichi's life to one where it was accepted within his life and therefore acknowledged.  

As the relationship and trust develops between Shuichi and Kenta, each of them brings a light that brightens the other's life, dispelling the dark and the shadows whilst creating memories of happiness and truth.

The knowledge that there is a Heartbeat archive at Teshima where you can listen to heartbeats recorded from so many  people from around the world, along with being able to record your own , is fascinating and is a wonderful tribute to life and the people we hold dear in so many ways.

The Library of Heartbeats is one of those lovely, gentle stories that gives you hope and an understanding that happiness isn't a given, you have to imagine being happy to set yourself on the right path.

About the Author

Laura Imai Messina was born in Rome and graduated in Literature from La Sapienza University. She moved to Tokyo at the age of twenty-three to perfect the language and has been permanently living in Japan ever since. She obtained a first level doctorate in Comparative Cultures at the International Christian University with a thesis on the Japanese writer Ogawa Yōko and at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies a PhD with a comparative thesis on the subject of materiality in Japanese and European literature.