Reviewed by Sadonna
TITLE: Hiraeth
SERIES: Augarten
AUTHOR: Charlie Godwyne
PUBLISHER: Self-published
LENGTH: 202 pages
RELEASE DATE: June 3, 2020
BLURB:
Through loss comes rebirth…
After losing someone precious to them, Gabriel, Solomon, and Florian have grown even closer. Gabriel has spent the last year learning as much as he can about magic. Florian has taken an enthusiastic worker under his wing, someone who may represent the future of Vienna’s best coffee shop. And Solomon has been struggling to discover how faith fits into an ever-changing world.
But with a new year comes new problems, and the trees in Augarten are getting sick… even the one that has proven to be so critical to Gabriel’s survival. As Gabriel himself falls ill, he digs into Florian’s old journals. He hopes the tear-soaked pages will hold the answer to what to do with the powerful magic that has such a deep link to Florian’s past and that may be the key to Gabriel’s future. The nature spirit wants the magic and is growing impatient, but how can Gabriel relinquish it after so much has been sacrificed on its behalf?
With Vienna and the rest of the world brought to a standstill in a spreading pandemic, Florian’s business struggling to survive, and Solomon reporting to a hospital to help those suffering, Gabriel scrambles to find an answer that will save everyone he loves without losing what he has worked so hard for.
Hiraeth is the third book in the Augarten series, which is best read in order, and is a 55,000-word MMM romance with magical realism, an apathetic nature spirit, lots of bicycle riding, and espresso on delivery.
The Augarten series is now complete and is best read in order: Equinox, Syzygy, Hiraeth, Florian, and Newyddian. An epilogue, Eviternity, will be released in 2022.
REVIEW:
Note: This series must be read in order or the reader will be completely lost as to what is happening 🙂
I will continue to say that I would regard this series as more gay literary fiction that a traditional romance – although there is the ongoing thread of the relationship between Gabriel, Florian and Solomon. Here Gabriel’s current physical plane existence is once again threatened. After the loss of his guardian angel in the past book, he’s still struggling. The loss has affected all three in different ways, but certainly Solomon and Gabriel are the most at risk.
Augarten, the spirit, continues to demand payment from Gabriel. This is of course the one thing he has been cautioned about doing as the risk to this incarnation and even his soul will be threatened. The men struggle to find the answers amid more threats – including a pandemic (this book takes place in the future but has man parallels with COVID-19) that threatens health and economic survival. Once again we see that Gabriel is desperate to stay with Florian and Solomon and he continues to be tested in the best way to do that.
I’m still not exactly sure that this series means and where it will ultimately end up. I do know that I continue to be charmed by the writing style and my love for Vienna keeps me returning to see what happens next. All three main characters are complex and well written and I just keep hoping that at some point we will get a happen ending here.
RATING: 
BUY LINK: