Title: Hanging by the Moment
Series: N/A
Author: H.B. Pattskyn
Genre: Contemporary
Length: Novel (350 pages)
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (September 6th, 2013)
Heat Level: Moderate
Heart Rating: ♥♥♥♥♥4.5Hearts
Blurb: Pasha Batalov has lived his whole life doing what a good son is expected to do. He dropped out of school to help run the failing family restaurant, and ever since he’s put up with his difficult business partner, who also happens to be his father. And, of course, he keeps his sexual orientation a secret from his conservative Russian family. After being closeted costs him his first serious relationship, Pasha resigns himself to one-night stands and loneliness.
But after a chance encounter with lost delivery truck driver, Daniel Englewood, Pasha starts to question all of his assumptions about life. Daniel is sweet, funny, smart, drop-dead gorgeous—and for the last six years, he’s been living with HIV. Pasha worries that he won’t be strong enough to help Daniel if HIV turns to AIDS, but he can’t walk away from their deepening attraction. He also doesn’t know if he can be strong enough to face the hardest task that a relationship with Daniel demands: coming out to his family and friends, and risking losing everything else he holds dear.
Product Link: http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=4161
Reviewer: GiGi
Review: I read this book without reading the blurb first, which allows me more twists and turns. The book unfolds with the primary focus being on Pasha and his family situation; his life being chained to the restaurant, his secret and how angry he is that he lives in the closet, how he uses sex to cope with that anger. This is a story where I wished Pasha had made the choice to come out, not to have it happen by chance. But really making out with his boyfriend in the driveway was inviting discovery wasn’t it?
This book is about the fears and dangers of coming out, and with that coming into your own strength. No longer hiding means making a claim and standing by it, no longer living with the burden of carrying that secret. But once past the first secret, Pasha then needs to decide if he is strong enough to carry the responsibility of standing by Daniel’s side. can he be the partner he needs to be? Is he strong enough?
There are many smaller dramas along the way in this book, from gay bashings, to family illness, and other failing family relationships. Pasha sometimes stumbles through these things as we all do, and other times he takes control, makes difficult decisions, and makes the reader proud!
As far as sexual content goes, the encounters Pasha has before Daniel are rather explicit, fast and furious. The encounters between Pasha and Daniel are slower, more seductive, and passionate.
There are many obstacles to overcome in this book, and both Daniel and Pasha seem to do a god job handling them. I’m sure this is only part of the story, while we are left with a happy ending, there are many problems foreshadowed in the book.
I think next we will see more of Pasha and Daniel reinventing the restaurant, handling Pasha’s mother, Daniels’ family, and their growing relationship. And I’m eager to read all about it!