From the Backlist - New Moon Rising

 

In Tarot reading, the Ace of Cups means joy and inner peace from friends and family. In the Rider–Waite–Smith deck, the five streams pouring out of the cup represent the five senses: sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch.^[

 

Welcome back to the Supernatural Underground Back List! 

 

On the brink of the New Moon in Virgo (a partial solar eclipse at the very end degree of the sign), September 21, 2025, we thought it would be fun to reread Kim Falconer's hints and tips, sign by sign. 

 

Kim tells us they are as relevant today as they were Sept 2012!

 

Enjoy! 

 

New Moon Rising

by Kim Falconer

Hi Everyone!

The NEW MOON is in VIRGO  and here is the scoop!

This lunation is a symbol of love reborn, deep compassion and reverence for all life, beginning with your own. It’s a time to amp up self-love, acknowledge attractions, welcome compassion and connect to the environment. Intuition deepens, love awakens and yes, you get to be brave!  

Virgo stand(s) for instrumentation, implementation and technical competence. Dennis Elwell

Think new beginnings, initiation and awareness! You start creating habits that make life better. Now. Here are some hints and tips to get you started. Read your Sun sign and rising sign if you know it. If not, comment and I'll walk you through the steps to work it out.

ARIES: The New Moon in your house of health is the perfect time to start supportive new habits in the realm of diet, exercise and daily ritual. Think of your body as your best friend. What do you feed her? How do you keep her fit and active? When do you let her rest? Play? Explore? Connect?

TAURUS: The creative and playful sphere of the heart is awakened at this New Moon. Ask what rituals do you have in place around your artistic expression? Is it haphazard, random or so strict there's no room to breathe? Set into motion some healthy ways to connect to your inner child. Make them fun!

GEMINI: The New Moon lights up your home, family and emotional security sector. What are you doing to feather your nest, metaphorically and literally? Ask how ritual can improve this area of life. Regular family dinners? Time with rels that could use your expertise? Renewed Feng Shui in the home? Go big!

CANCER: This is the perfect time to create new habits around self-talk, verbal communication and written or spoken expression, teaching and leaning. Notice how you connection socially around familiar haunts then start putting more conscious awareness on your thoughts. Remember, they do become things!

LEO: New Moon amps up your house of money, a representation of your inner core values and self-esteem. This is excellent for boosting feelings of self-worth and setting in place new habits of care, respect and generosity. Let go the critical and embrace the abundance of non-judgment. So freeing! 

VIRGO: This is your 'birthday' New Moon and ideal for starting any new project that has your 'heart's desire' in it. Most likely opportunities are rolling in. You get to pick your favorite and lavish it with positive energy. The trick is to not become totally obsessed. Start a habit of balance in everything you do.

Read the rest of the signs on Kim Falconer's original post: Libra to Pisces!

Find out more about Kim Falconer here. 

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We would love to hear how you are going on this partial solar eclipse VIRGO paloosa, in the comments.

 

From the Backlist - What's in a Blurb

 

A desperate prince… a castle full of lies… and an ancient shapeshifter trapped in the form of a human girl. Mistwood by Leah Cypress

Hello to all Sup readers! Today, from the Backlist, we are looking at the topic of BLURBS. Though the contest is long over from this April 28, 2011 post by Leah Cypess, the question remains. Do book blurbs make a difference?

NOTE - For those interested in the history of book blurbs:

In 1907the writer and illustrator Gelett Burgess decided to satirise the practice of putting women on the cover of books, whether they were about women or not. He put a sickly sweet fictional girl named Miss Belinda Blurb his new release, “Are you Bromide?” to incite sales. His plan worked, or back-fired (not sure which) when Bromide sold so well that the term Book Blurb was popularized and all future books included one on the back cover. 

Miss Belinda Book Blurb (1907) from Buried Under Books

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What's In A Blurb 

by Leah Cypess

. . . Blurbs make an author feel good (trust me), but the constant question in publishing is: Do they actually have any effect on the reader? What I’ve heard from some people is that the answer is age dependent – in adult publishing, the consensus is that blurbs do affect readers; in YA, probably not to a great extent; and in mid-grade, probably not at all. 

Of course, as with most information in publishing, this is based on a strenuous and scientific review of five pieces of anecdotal evidence. So, I’m curious: do blurbs affect your buying decisions? Will they make you look at a book more closely? Do you even notice them?

Let us know what you think in the comments . . . Read the whole post and fascinating comments ..

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What is your take on Blurbs? Read them? Love them? Distrust them?

Let us know!

 

From the Backlist - Juliet Marillier

 

Fantasy author Juliet Marillier

It's time again to flip through the Supernatural Underground back list and today we are landing on an interview with Juliet Marillier. Conducted in 2012 by our own, wonderful writer Helen Lowe, the words, tips and insights remain timeless (especially after chatting about curses this month!)

Introducing Juliet Marillier:

Juliet Marillier’s historical fantasy novels for adults and young adults, including the popular Sevenwaters series, have been translated into many languages and have won a number of awards including the Aurealis, the American Library Association’s Alex Award, the Sir Julius Vogel Award and the Prix Imaginales. Her lifelong love of folklore, fairy tales and mythology is a major influence on her writing. Juliet is currently working on the Shadowfell series, a story of tyranny and rebellion set in a magical version of ancient Scotland. When not busy writing, she tends to a small pack of waifs and strays.

In addition to this interview, you may find out more on Juliet’s website http://www.julietmarillier.com; she also blogs on http://www.writerunboxed.com.

Interview: Juliet Marillier and Shadowfell

US Cover

Helen: Juliet, Shadowfell is your third specifically YA novel, following on from Wildwood Dancing and Cybele’s Secret, and all three have strong romantic elements. Do you feel this is an increasingly important part of writing YA stories, or part of a continuing tradition?

Juliet: YA stories feature a young adult protagonist or protagonists and usually focus on that character’s journey toward maturity ( the tradition of the Bildungsroman.) Learning about love / relationships is an important part of that stage in our lives, so it’s not surprising so many writers are building strong romantic elements into their YA stories. I don’t remember quite such an emphasis on romance in the books my children read as young adults, so I do think the approach has changed. Within my genre of fantasy, there’s been an upsurge of paranormal romance, partly generated by the Twilight books, but also reflecting the popularity of this sub-genre with adult readers. There are far more female fantasy writers (and female fantasy readers) than there were, say, twenty years ago, and perhaps female writers are more confident about including a good love story in a fantasy novel.

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To read the full interview, including some great comments, click here.

To find out more about Juliet Marillier, click here.

Note: Helen posts regularly on her “…on Anything, Really” blog, monthly here on the Supernatural Underground, and tweets @helenl0we.

From the Backlist - What's In a Name?

 

Dragon Name Generator from TA Barron

Hello Everyone!

For us dragons and humans, it's time again to explore the #backlist at the Supernatural Underground! 

FIY my dragon name, according to the above, is Crimson Smoke the Young. LOL 

Today we are sharing a post made in March 2011 by the bestselling romance author Pamela Palmer. Here she talks about the ups and downs and ins and outs of choosing a character's name.

I promise, it's actually a lot harder than it sounds!

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What's In a Name?

by Pamela Palmer

...I always thought that picking the names of my characters would be easy. Just thumb through a baby name book, find a few names I liked, and that would be it, right? Maybe it works like that for some authors. Not for me. I have to like the name, of course, but it's so much more complicated than that. The name has to, in some way, capture the essence of the character for me. It becomes an important vehicle for understanding that character.

In comparison, naming kids is easy. And I can say that because I've named two of them and it wasn't easy at all. My husband's and my tastes in names were poles apart. The thing with naming babies is, you don't know them. You're trying to give them a name they'll be happy with for a lifetime, but unlike naming characters, you're not trying to fit their name with their personality, because you don't know them yet.

Before I choose a name for a character, I have to understand her (or him). I knew that Kara (the heroine of Desire Untamed) was a sweet, spunky, girl-next-door type long before I knew her name. I knew Delaney (the heroine of Obsession Untamed) was a tough human FBI agent and Skye (Passion Untamed) was a sweet Mage witch with a pure heart. Their names came later, and not easily. I tried several names each before I found the one that clicked for me. In Kara's case, I went through at least six before finding the one that fit.

So how do I decide which name fits? Like so many things having to do with the writing process, I look inside myself for the answer. When I hit on the element, in this case the name, that feels right, I know it. I feel it in my gut. But I don't always feel it instantly. With names, in particular, I have to live with them a little while before I know, although this 'living with them' usually takes place during the plotting process, before I ever start writing the book. Rarely will I change a name after the book is underway any more, though that used to happen all the time.


As I plot and work out the key aspects of my story, I try out different names until I find the ones that feel right...

 

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To read the full article and learn more about this wonderful author and her bestselling books, go to the original post and follow Pamela on FB and Twitter.

Let us know in the comments some of your favorite character names.