Waking up with no memory is just the beginning of his troubles…

Not knowing who he is or how he ended up naked in a park in Vienna, Gabriel struggles to reclaim his past while still moving forward into an uncertain future. It isn’t long before he realizes that not having an identity isn’t the only thing that makes him different. Plants and people glow with magic all around him, and he’s actually able to speak to his very own guardian angel—even though the angel won’t tell him anything about who he really is.

As he tries to learn something about his prior life, Gabriel finds himself inexplicably drawn to two very different men: Solomon, the exorcist priest who found Gabriel and has been helping him try to remember who he once was; and Florian, an occultist coffee shop owner whose own tragic past allows him to accept Gabriel even without memories.

But without the foundation of a past, Gabriel worries the life he’s building will crumble around him. As Gabriel’s health begins to dwindle—and not even his angel can explain why—he scrambles to find answers before he’s taken away from the happiness he’s found and the men he loves.

Equinox is the first installment in the Augarten series and is an 88,000-word MMM romance with magical realism, featuring an amnesiac willing to try almost anything to remember, a priest with unorthodox thoughts, and plenty of espresso.

How was it?

So here’s the thing: I immediately gravitated to Equinox, yet it took me a while to get into it. I couldn’t even count how many times I had to restart the first few chapters because I found myself zombie-reading,* just skimming words without absorbing them. And honestly, I wouldn’t blame anyone who puts the book down early. But once you push past that, there’s just enough of an odd hypnotic quality to the story to keep you curious.

The premise itself is fascinating: Gabriel wakes up with no memories, naked in a park, and quickly realizes there’s something different about him. He can see magic glowing in people and plants, he has a literal guardian angel following him around, and he’s caught between two men, Solomon, an exorcist priest (yes, priest, which already complicates things), and Florian, a coffee shop owner with an occult background. It sounds like the setup for a sweeping fantasy-romance, and in some ways it is… but it’s also slower, quieter, and a lot weirder than you’d expect.

One of the things the book does well is capture what it might feel like to live without memories. That sense of confusion, of trying to piece together a life you don’t remember, it’s here in spades. The flip side is that Gabriel, as an amnesiac main character, sometimes feels a little too lost to carry the story with momentum. He drifts, and so does the narrative.

The world itself is strangely grounded. At times, it feels like you’re reading straight-up literary fiction set in Vienna, Austria (which I loved, because it’s not a setting I read often). Then suddenly, magic pops in, casual, understated, and yet somehow not quite fitting seamlessly either. Religion and spirituality are woven deeply into the story, tying into how the magic is presented. It’s an unusual mix, or at least it feels unusual here, but it gives the book its own distinct flavor.

Now, let’s talk about the romance. Equinox is an MMM story, but the way the relationships develop didn’t quite click for me. The chemistry between Gabriel and the two men feels more told than shown. I hardly felt anything, and when the steamier moments come, it feels almost odd and out of place, like the groundwork wasn’t fully laid. It didn’t help that one of the love interests is a priest, which makes the relationship hard to imagine realistically or, at the very least, warrants a lot more set-up. Oddly enough, the initial pairing doesn’t fully work for me, so the idea of the full triad (MMM) was even harder to get behind; it felt rushed.

Stylistically, the writing sometimes feels awkward, almost as if I could sense the rewrites and edits underneath. The flow isn’t always seamless, which makes the story feel uneven at times. That said, the audiobook narration by Guy Veryzer is solid; it didn’t elevate the text into something unforgettable, but it carried the story well enough.

All in all, Equinox is a tricky book. It’s slow, uneven, and sometimes awkward, but it’s also undeniably different. If you’re into magical realism, stories that blend religion and fantasy, and MMM romances with a European setting, it might click for you. For me, it was more of a mixed bag, one I don’t regret reading, but one I had to push myself through.

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