"It's a rare gift to understand that your life is wondrous, and that it won't last forever."

This historic fiction is loosely based on a real cellist who lived and played in Sarajevo during the beginning of the siege that spanned from early 1992 until early 1996.

After a mortar strike kills twenty-two people waiting in line for bread, the cellist goes that same place and plays his cello each day for twenty-two days. The novel follows three different perspectives: a sniper who will not kill just to kill; a man who walks for hours to collect water for his wife and children; a man who sent his wife and son away before the siege and is now unsure if he will see them again.

The cellist intersects the lives of these ordinary people in extraordinary ways, lending light to a land devoid of hope.

This is a powerful read and the audio book, which was narrated by Gareth Armstrong, was captivating.