For a novel like Seven Touches Of Music to work we have to believe in the characters and their circumstances sufficiently that the impact the music has on their lives becomes as significant to us as it does to them. Zivkovic has not only made his characters utterly convincing, but his depiction of their lives, and the environment they live in, are detailed in such a manner that we can feel the shock to their systems when they are given their brief glimpses into the unknown.

As he builds the story to its conclusion, it's in the final two scenarios that Zivkovic starts to tie together the separate threads of his story, each character adds another layer to the mystery of the music and its relationship to the events in the story. In the first story the music is a known quality, a piece that one of the protagonists is familiar with, but from there on in it becomes an unknown agent that is being released on unsuspecting victims. At least, they seem to think of themselves as being victimized, but are they?

Seven Touches Of Music is beautifully written story where on the surface nothing much seems to happen, yet each character in the book travels further than most heroes do on epic quests. The action takes place inside the characters as they come to grips with the new awareness of the world that the music has gifted to them. It's the questions that this book asks not the answers it provides that makes it interesting, and as long as you're willing to take that trip with the characters, it will be one of the most rewarding reads you've had in a long time.