Deadlocked

If you have read the first two books in the Harry Russo Diaries, you know that Harry has had a busy couple of months. All she really wants now is for her life to settle down and get back to normal – or at least as normal as it can be for a witch that sees ghosts.

Her latest project is opening a coffee shop and she tries to immerse herself in the day-to-day work of getting the venture off the ground. Too bad her life just keeps getting in the way of her plans.

Excerpt from Deadlocked:

On the night after the fourth body had been found, Tess and I were hard at work weeding through the ever growing stack of résumés. It seemed like every werewolf in the city had decided they needed a job in the new shop and so I had recruited Tess to help go through them all. Not knowing what to expect in terms of actual customers, I decided to hire two people to start. Mrs. P would continue to operate the flower shop as usual, but now that Tiffy’s social skills had improved, she would move over to provide daytime help in the coffee shop. I figured at first, we’d make sure to always have two people in the shop at any given time. Judging from the applications I had, I didn’t think it would be a problem to hire someone else if customer traffic warranted it.

Hilde We were in the process of winnowing down the list to our top five applicants in order to set up some interviews when my ‘spidey-sense’ vampire detector went off. I turned to look at the door just as it swung open, the little bell above it chiming quietly. For a minute, I thought my sixth sense must be on the fritz because standing in the doorway appeared to be a slight, young girl of about sixteen or seventeen. She was dressed in skinny jeans with the knees worn out, tennis shoes and a black hoodie. Her hair, which was dyed a fiery red, was pulled back in a ponytail and for the most part hidden under a frayed, army style cap. She could easily pass for just about any teenager in the neighbourhood. That is until she turned and met my eyes.