Title: The Retail Witches
Series: The Retail Witches Book 1
Author: Les Goodrich
Genre: Urban Fantasy/New Adult
Release Date: November 7, 2017
Now Hiring Experienced Witches (Must Have Reliable Wand)
Working in retail is always interesting, but when the store is Avalon Spellshop, the employees are Witches, and the customers are tourists, things can get downright crazy.
Brit, Tanner, and Jordan live the retail life in an old city where Witchcraft thrives in the underground community their store serves. Their boss is cool, they love their jobs, and they mostly get along. But can this quirky bunch of magickal misfits unravel the clues to find an ancient, powerful spell before their dark witch rivals over at The Poison Apple?
To embark on this mission Brit must venture beyond the safety of her books, Tanner must choose a side, and Jordan may have to slow her roll as the witchiest party girl in town.
Grab your wand, a huge coffee to go, and join The Retail Witches on the magical adventure of a lifetime (or at least of this tourist season).
Excerpt from: The Retail Witches (Retail Witches Series - Book 1), by Les Goodrich
From Chapter 11 – A Dark Visit
Jordan saw the visitor spell mirror blink and she moved to get a better look at it. In the black mirror she saw a striking girl in her mid-twenties hardly dressed for the cold day wearing well worn, below-the-hip jeans and a tight black shirt hemmed high above her bare, muscled midriff. Her hip bones flashed as she walked with a slinky swerve and her long shimmering strawberry blonde hair fell like a lion’s mane and swung with her stride behind her chiseled face. Her scarlet lips full. Her green mirrored sunglasses on fire in the Sun. Her long arm, bent at the elbow, reached its muscle-lined forearm to her gracefully clasped hand to hold the leather bag strap slung over her wide shoulder. Her delicate blonde girlish arm hair glowed bright like fine illuminated silk and made her tan skin shine.
Jordan felt an involuntary thrill as she watched the girl step in the mirror and her heart raced in full-tilt instant girl-crush mode and the sounds of the shop fell away. She saw the girl’s image grow larger and she recognized in the mirror the wall of the bakery across from the shop and she turned to watch the door for the girl to come in.
The door opened and unnaturally dry air flooded the store and rustled papers and skirt hems as if the air itself had some electric awareness that searched out every loose or vulnerable thing. Carol turned to look, with everyone else, and through the entry stepped a forty-something Gwen looking decidedly unlike the girl for which Jordan had been ready to see.
On Gwen's head six-inch ribbed and curved horns curled up from a black silk rose headdress from which an ebony veil fell behind and within was any and all hair fully concealed. A diamond strand draped from each temple to peak at her powder-white forehead and from its apex a platinum and ruby jeweled bindi hung. The irises of her vacant eyes were as impossibly white as her face and her pupils stood within them as deep and obsidian as her full black lips.
Her neck was concealed under a theatrically ruffled black circle collar about a fitted turtleneck of black laced crepe which clung curved up to and below her strong jaw and forward chin and so framed her motionless expression of doll-like indifference. Her deep wine-red corset and matching cloak with low slung arms and wizard-wide cuffs curtained the fully gloved hands she clasped before her to hold some unseen device on the belted silver chains that draped the pleated waist of her long garnet skirts of layered brocade silk and raven ruffles which hung wide and to the floor. The only skin visible was her striking alabaster face and she made no sound whatsoever when she moved so smoothly across the floor that she appeared to glide on ice. Tourists stood with jaws agape and locals skirted the shelves to depart and within the store, Halloween Eve or not, there were no doubts. There was a witch in the room.
Gwen moved into the store and Carol intercepted her between the counter end and the aisle to the bookshelf.
Gwen spoke in measured tones and her expression remained stoic. “Hello Carol. I was merely passing by and wanted to wish you a blessed Samhain. You and all of your,” and she swept her gaze over Jordan at the front, Tanner with a customer, and Brit at the bookshelf. “Your, household,” she concluded and her very words fell with their own weight as if each were a stone dropped from her mouth and every syllable was threat and contempt and disdain and black with curses.
Les Goodrich writes hyper-creative fiction about witches, ghosts, and magical creatures within Urban Fantasy societies layered among the terrain of our everyday world. His eloquent prose and well-paced stories combine pagan lore, modern witchcraft, and fantasy magic in ways that feel utterly real.
His darkest villains have genuine motives while his beloved heroes range from brilliant outcasts to quirky creatives. His writing style creates such vivid and hypnotic visual experiences that you will often be startled to look up and find yourself safely back in your favorite reading spot.
Les Goodrich holds a BSBA Degree from The Florida State University College of Business where he completed a double major in Management and Marketing. Les worked for three Fortune 500 companies after graduating college and served as a corporate manager in operations for Starbucks Coffee Company for over seven years. He left Starbucks in 2014 to pursue his writing career full time.
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