Excerpt from A Thousand Perfect Things
This title has been released in trade paper. E-book formats available on August 27.
Check out some excerpts from my new novel! I’ve chosen scenes to minimize spoilers while still giving a flavor of the story. Each week I’ll post an excerpt on this blog, then add it to the Excerpts page. This is the third excerpt. You’ll also find this on the Excerpts page, along with previous excerpts.
EXCERPT #3
The Golden Lotus and the Silver Tigers
In the land of Bharata (an altered India) Mahindra, a renunciate and holy man, must convince the Rana of Nanpura to endorse his enterprise to drive the colonials (the Anglics) out of their land. It entails a complicated strategem of bringing Tori Harding to Bharata.
“Ah, babaji, you know how it pains me to deny you.”
The Rana of Nanpura stood in his royal quarters as his servant, standing on a drum, wound his turban.
Mahindra bowed in a show of submission. In his heart, though, desire raged. For the first time in many years Mahindra wanted something. It was an intimate, startling thing, one that would not lie still.
Even dressed in simple attire for his hunt today, Prince Uttam looked every inch a ruler. He was a big man, broad-chested, with a manly belly filling out the achkan that extended to his knees. In contrast, Mahindra had but half of his prince’s weight, as befitted a sadhu who had long ago tasted his last jellabies. Though the two men had been raised together in the palace and had been friends from boyhood, their paths had always been different: Uttam raised to rule, and Mahindra, the son of a chamberlain, destined to study.
Escorted by more servants, they walked to the courtyard where the hunting party awaited. Mahindra murmured, “My prince, does not this flower portend the favor of the gods?”
They must be careful not to mention within the servants’ hearing which flower, lest rumors take hold that the holy golden lotus had been sighted. Religious fervor over the lotus would fit well into Mahindra’s plans, but not yet. Of course, Uttam had been told of the holy flower’s likely tangible existence. But now his first reaction of amazement had cooled to doubt and perhaps fear. Read More…