Title	The Temple of Skanda
Author	Roland Graeme
ISBN#	978-1-60820-167-9 (print) $14.99
	978-1-60820-168-6 (ebook) $6.99
Release Date	May 2010
Cover Artist	Deana C. Jamroz
Paperback:	260 pages
Available At:	MlrBooks (ebook)
	Amazon.com (paperback)

Determined to turn his life around after a run-in with the law, Conor desperately needs a job, and a place to stay. He finds both with Murray, an importer, who hires Conor as his shipping clerk and live-in handyman. What Conor hadn’t counted on was falling in love with his new boss–hopelessly, he thinks, because Murray still seems obsessed with his memories of Derek, the lover he recently broke up with.

When Murray takes Conor along on a buying trip to India, the two men team up with Spence, an Australian anthropologist investigating rumors that a secret homosexual religious cult devoted to the Hindu god Skanda exists in parts of rural India. All three men’s lives are changed after their initiation into the orgiastic mysteries that are celebrated in the temple of Skanda.

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Chapter One:
Dancing in the Ring of Fire

Conor O’Malley was doing his best to dance his cares away when he stepped off the edge of the dance floor and fell flat on his face.

Conor would soon be thirty, an age at which (he kept reminding himself) a man should start acting a little more responsibly. The kind of screw-ups that might, or might not, be excusable in a younger guy would be much less attractive now.

At least he still possessed the physical resilience of youth. Conor had a lean, muscular build, blue eyes, and pale, tawny-freckled skin that flushed rose-gold when he exerted himself. He tended to wear his reddish-blond hair long. Knowing that he had retained a certain boyishness, he had long ago grown a mustache and a goatee, in an attempt to look more mature.

Women found him attractive, which was unfortunate, since he was immune to their charms. Gay men found him extremely appealing, and they could generally count on better luck. (continue reading…)