Michael meets Anna on a beach in Ibiza, a quiet, instant connection, the kind of afternoon you spend years thinking about.

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But before anything can form, she drifts into someone else's orbit, and Michael is left in the space between almost and everything.

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The life Anna returns to looks like love from the outside and feels like a prison from within.

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Michael can't rescue her. He can only be there. And sometimes that's everything.

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Restrained, tender, and deeply personal, The Gentle Orbit is Johan Raubal's second novel, a literary story about timing, proximity, and the people who orbit our lives without ever quite landing. Pre order today October 2026.