A Supermoon Spell for Love

 

As you probably already know, the full moon this Sunday (August 10th) is going to be what they call a "Supermoon." A Supermoon occurs when a full moon coincides with the time in the moon's orbit when it is closest to the Earth. This makes for a full moon that looks larger than usual--and the one this coming Sunday is going to be that biggest Supermoon this year.

Beyond the fact that it will be pretty glorious to look upon, you might wonder if a Supermoon is more powerful for doing magical work than any old regular full moon. I'm going to go with: yes.

Think about how much energy a regular full moon has (I have a hard time sleeping for a few days around the full moon for this very reason), and then think about it being closer, and more visually and energetically present. In short, if it seems more powerful, it probably is.

What does this mean for those who practice the magical arts? It's a good time to pull out the spells that mean the most to you; the ones you really want to work. And since here in the Northern hemisphere it is the height of summer, with all its attendant heat and late nights, I thought I'd share a love spell for you to use this full moon, if you are feeling the need for a little more love in your life.

I'm not a big believer in using love spells, per se. I think it is too easy to interfere with someone's free will that way, and I'm definitely a "free will is the law" kind of witch. But this is a different kind of love spell. I first used it in The Goddess is in the Details, and I liked it so much, I put it into The Everyday Witch A to Z Spellbook too. It's a spell not to cast on a particular person, or even with someone special in mind--instead, it works only on the one who casts it, because it is a spell to open yourself to love. (This doesn't have to be romantic love, either. It can be friendship, which in its truest form is most certainly a kind of love.)

So if you want something powerful to recite under an extra powerful moon, here it is, my gift to you. After all, couldn't the world use more love?

I ask the moon and stars above

To open my heart to perfect love

Striving not, nor chasing after

But open wide to love and laughter

Hopeful am I and willing, too

To open myself to lover’s woo

But while I wait for love that’s meant

With myself I’ll be content

I wish for love that’s true and right

Filled with joy and shining light

I release all that which blocks my way

And open my heart to one who’ll stay

I hope the moon brings you something (or someone) fabulous.

Feline Friday: The Busy Summer Version

Is it just me, or is this summer just whizzing by? Maybe it is because I am trying to juggle writing and book promo and household repairs and the Sekrit Project...or maybe the space-time continuum really is changing. You know, just at my house. What do you think? Is your summer whipping by at the speed of light?

Here's some of what's been going on this week, besides the (OMG!) release of the Wickedly Magical novella and accompanying celebration giveaway.

I got a new fridge, because the old one tried really hard to die on the Friday evening of the 4th of July 3-day weekend. Of course, I bought the new one on July 6th, they couldn't deliver it until this last Wednesday...and by the time I got the new one, the old one seemed to be working perfectly again. Sigh. I keep telling myself that if I hadn't bought the new one, the old one would have died for sure. Interestingly, I got exactly the same model, so it is almost as though nothing changed. Except this:

See how CLEAN and organized it is? That will never happen again. (If you look closely, you can see a bottle of champagne on the far right of the bottom shelf on the door. I'm opening it on September 2nd. Who's going to join me?)

Things are blooming like crazy in my yard and garden. No, I am not even remotely keeping up with it.

 The garden.

 Black-eyes Susans in the yard.

The perfect summer dinner: sauteed new potatoes and onions with homemade pesto (all out of my garden), corn, cukes, and tomatoes (a few of which were mine, although most of them are still green) and my own basil and parsley. Yum.

I've got a Guy, who is helping out with the yard and garden, and also staining the decks (I tried doing it myself last year, and my tendonitis was Not Happy). He explained to me this morning that when he was staining the side deck earlier this week while I was at work, he had to reach the top bits by standing in my wheelbarrow. (WTF?) It turned out he had a good reason not to use the ladder. (Don't worry; I showed him where the step stool lives.)

 Yes, some bird built a nest on top. Silly bird. (No, we didn't touch it.)

Of course, cats REALLY know how to spend the long summer days.
Reading:

And relaxing, preferably in a patch of sun:

Mystic. No, the window isn't small. The cat is just very large.

Minerva, enjoying the patch of sun on the couch

Mystic and Magic, napping on the bed. More sun.

Magic wanted to know why I was disturbing her nap.

Of course, at night, they have to supervise my writing. It's not as though I could do it without them.

I hope your summer is going well, and that you are finding time to read and relax, with or without cats. Are you doing anything fun this summer? The cats wanted me to ask you. So, are you?

WICKEDLY MAGICAL--It's Novella Release Day!

It has been a long, long wait but today is the day—WICKEDLY MAGICAL is finally here!

WICKEDLY MAGICAL is the prequel novella for the Baba Yaga series, which means it tells a little bit of the “story before the story starts.” You don’t need to read it in order to enjoy the novels, but it does give you that first glimpse into the world of Barbara Yager (the first Baba Yaga) and her sisters.

Known as the wicked witch of Russian fairy tales, Baba Yaga is not one woman, but rather a title carried by a chosen few. They keep the balance of nature and guard the borders of our world, but don’t make the mistake of crossing one…

Barbara Yager loves being one of the most powerful witches in the world, but sometimes she’d rather kick back in her enchanted Airstream with a beer in her hand than work out how to grant the requests of the worthy few who seek her out.

But when a man appears with the token of a family debt of honor, Barbara must drop everything to satisfy the promise owed by her predecessor—and she isn’t above being a little wicked to make sure the debt is paid in full…

Here are a few links, in case you are in the mood to take a look (and don't worry if you don't have an eReader; you can get a free and easy Kindle app that will let you read on your computer). 

 PENGUIN

 AMAZON

 B&N

 iBooks

And don’t forget, WICKEDLY DANGEROUS (Baba Yaga novel #1) is out on September 2^nd and it’s up for pre-order now! And if you get a copy of WICKEDLY MAGICAL, be sure to come tell me (on the blog, or Twitter, or Facebook) what you thought. Spread the word, if you are so inclined--you know I appreciate it! In fact, I'm giving away a Big Bundle of Baba Yaga Swag to one random fan. You can enter the contest here AND/or on Facebook. (But it only runs until the end of Wednesday, so don't wait.)
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Welcome to the world of the Baba Yagas!

Here's an excerpt to tempt you....

Barbara Yager glided her classic BMW motorcycle to a halt in front of the silver Airstream trailer that she lived in whenever she was on the road. It was currently parked in a lot on the campus of the Northern Illinois University where she was presenting a series of guest lectures on wild crafting herbs. Traveling botanist and college professor made for a useful cover for her other activities, which tended to be a little less conventional. To say the least.

As she swung one lean, leather-clad leg over the saddle of the bike, she caught a glimpse of something curious, reflected in the shiny royal blue paint. The reflection should have been impossible, given the angle, but like everything else about Barbara Yager, the motorcycle was not quite what it seemed.

“Hmph,” she said, not very loudly, and strolled over to the front door of the Airstream without looking back.

“We have company,” she said as she closed the door behind her. “Again.”

She removed her helmet, releasing a cloud of dark hair that flowed over her shoulders like silk. The helmet and black leather jacket were hung on branch-like pegs that sprouted out of the wall as she snapped her fingers, leaving her clad in matching black leather pants and a crimson tee. Not what the university administrators had been expecting, she suspected, but she didn’t much care. Following the rules had never been her strong suit.

A blunt black-nosed snout pushed aside the velvet curtain covering the window, as Chudo-Yudo looked for himself. He gave a barking laugh, one that went well with his current guise as a huge white pit pull; not exactly subtle, but a lot easier to explain than his true form of a ten-foot dragon. They’d been companions since she’d been a child…which was a lot longer ago than one would suppose based on appearances.

“Not very smart,” Chudo-Yudo growled. “Stalking a Baba Yaga.” He showed a set of sharp white teeth. “Maybe he has a death wish. I could help with that. You want me to eat him?”

Barbara rolled her eyes. “I don’t think that will be necessary. It is not as though he is a threat.”

As if an ordinary mortal could harm a Baba Yaga in a face-to-face confrontation. Barbara was one of the three Babas currently living in—and responsible for—the United States. Like the others, she’d been trained in magic by the Baba Yaga who’d preceded her, and like the others, she was tasked with guarding the doorway to the Otherworld, keeping the balance of nature (as much as anyone could in these modern times), and occasionally, helping a worthy seeker. 

That last one was a pain in the butt.

Barbara sighed, peering out the window over Chudo-Yudo’s massive furry shoulder at the rusting blue pickup truck parked under a nearby tree. For three days, it had followed her from the building where her class was held. Each day, it sat there, idling, for about twenty minutes, no doubt while its driver attempted to work up his nerve to confront one of the most powerful witches on the planet. Each day, it drove off again, the man inside only a vague image of ragged hair and bowed shoulders, leaving behind it a miasma of exhaust and sorrow.

Barbara was tired of waiting. In theory, those seeking her assistance were supposed to come to her. She decided that parking within twenty feet of her home was close enough to count. There was a cold beer with her name on it (literally, since a small organic brewery in Utah made a beer called “Baba” that she was quite fond of), and she wasn’t going to be able to relax until she figured out if she was truly needed, or if whoever was out there was just wasting her time and annoying her. It was never a good idea to annoy a Baba Yaga. Particularly not this Baba.

Muttering under her breath, she stomped over to stand in front of the driver’s side door, arms crossed, booted feet planted firmly on the ground. Chudo-Yudo trailed along behind her, probably out of sheer boredom. They tended to spend more time away from civilization than in it, which made it easier for him to be out and about, and a week stuck in the Airstream in the middle of a parking lot had made the dog-dragon even grumpier than usual.

The window lowered slowly, revealing a pale, rugged face under badly cut brown hair. Baba thought the man might have been reasonably attractive when he didn’t look so tired and worried. The lines of strain had carved crevices and valleys onto an otherwise pleasant landscape, and dark brown eyes were ringed by shadows that spoke of many a sleepless night.

Barbara hardened her heart. Just because someone wasn’t sleeping well didn’t mean he merited her assistance. Maybe the guy had a guilty conscience. Or stayed up all night gambling and chasing women.

She hoped he hadn’t come to her in search of some kind of magical treasure to get him out of debt. That might have worked on occasion in the old days, back in the dark green, mysterious forests of Mother Russia, when Baba Yagas were more inclined to play along with the fairy tales people told about them. Not anymore, and definitely not her. He was going to have to really need her help, or she’d turn him into a toad and go drink that beer.

“Hey,” she said, possibly a touch more forcefully than she’d intended to, based on the way the guy flinched. “I’m guessing you wanted to talk to me, since you’ve followed me back here three days in a row. Were you ever planning to get out of that truck?”

The man eyed her dubiously, and looked even less encouraged by the sight of the large canine sitting at her feet, long pink tongue lolling, and just a hint of steam curling out of his nostrils. But after a minute the man shut off the engine and opened the door. For all his hesitation, once he was in front of her, he straightened up and pulled his shoulders back, as if gathering his courage. A couple of inches over her five foot ten, he wore a clean blue shirt over jeans that actually looked like they’d been ironed. One hand gripped a small box.

Barbara raised a dark eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. She’d gone as far as she was going to—the next step was up to him.

People are Talking About Me (and Feline Friday)

People have been talking about me this week. Well, at least, they've been talking about my books, and that's a good thing!

Author Jim C. Hines had a great review of WICKEDLY DANGEROUS on his blog HERE (Spoiler: He liked it!)

Author Lisa Shearin was kind enough to spread the word at her blog HERE

(These are both amazing authors--two of my favorite writers AND people. If you're not reading them yet, you should definitely check them out.)

Rebecca Elson talked about The Witches Broom on her blog, The Magical Buffet

You should go check these things out and say hi--tell 'em Deborah sent you :-)

Maybe the most exciting of all was a review in one of the major romance publications, RT Book Reviews. They gave WICKEDLY DANGEROUS four stars (they only go up to 4 1/2, so 4 is great) and a really glowing review. (I'm not sure if you can read the review if you don't have a subscription, but here is the link in case you can.) RT BOOK REVIEWS

My wonderful publisher, Berkley, is giving away twenty copies of WICKEDLY DANGEROUS on GOODREADS -- go see if you can snag a copy!

It is hard to believe that the novella will be out on August 5th! That's next week! *faints* Wickedly Magical

And the lovely folks at Berkley sent me the first print copy of WICKEDLY DANGEROUS, hot off the presses. Magic the Cat was very impressed. Isn't it bee-oo-tiful?

Your Feline Friday picture

She doesn't look like she wants to give that one up, but pretty soon I should get my box of author copies, and then I suspect we'll be having some giveaways... In fact, I will probably do something next Tuesday, to celebrate the release of the novella, so stay tuned. (If you're not signed up for the newsletter, you might want to be...just saying.) I know I'm going to do an ARC giveaway on my Facebook Author Page (they don't let you do giveaways on your personal page, silly people), so if you want in on that, you should go like me.

 As you might expect, the next month or so is going to be a lot of "OMG THE BOOKS" around here, but I'll try to keep it interesting. Next up is a blog post on the origins of the Baba Yaga (the original stories, not my updated take on  it). I hope to have exciting news to announce soon about the Super Sekrit Project too.

Nothing but good times ahead! So are you as excited as Magic is about the book?

Faucets Ate My Wednesday

I had plans for my day off on Wednesday. Lists of things to do. Long lists. Including writing, plus a bunch of household chores. The list started out with: replace bathroom and kitchen faucets. This should have been a fairly easy task. (Really, just read the boxes the faucets come in.) I've done my own minor plumbing for years--I can fix a toilet like nobody's business. And the REALLY OLD pipes had been cleared away after I moved in (and, you know, broke them trying to replace the bathroom faucet the last time).

But NO.

The bathroom faucet took about 5 hours. FIVE HOURS, people. Most of that was trying to get the old faucet off. Things were stuck. There was copious use of WD40. I consulted the Interwebs (someone sent me a great link to This Old House, which said use a hammer...which actually worked). Wrestling, then walking away, then more wrestling. There might have been cursing. But in the end, there was this:

This was the old faucet. See that drain thingy lying there? Broken. Also, it was a crappy faucet.

Everything got taken out from under the sink. No, it didn't all fit back underneath after. I don't know why.

After four hours, the old faucet finally decided to give up. The hammer might have had something to do with that.

Bare naked sink. I almost left it that way.

Look--the new faucet is so pretty! (The sink however, is filthy. I'll clean it tomorrow.)

 Like a sensible person (okay, a sensible person would have called the plumber after hour two, but nevermind), I gave up on the idea of doing the kitchen sink on the same day. I was tired, dammit. And the kitchen faucet was only sorta broken (it was supposed to rotate, and it had stopped doing it a year ago, which was inconvenient over a double sink, but obviously not impossible, because A YEAR AGO).

And then my pal Glen (you remember him, he built my new desk for me) came by to rescue me from the bathroom sink. Which I'd literally finished five minutes before he got there. So he said, "Let me take a look at the kitchen sink. It doesn't look that bad..."

Really, I should have known better. It mostly came apart easier than the bathroom faucet (it helped that there were two of us, and you know, he had the right tools--note to self: buy more tools). But when we had it put together, the LAST connection kept leaking, and we couldn't figure out why. We tried everything. Silicon tape. Plumber's putty. Filing down a rough spot on one of the connections. Finally, Glen thought to try using a washer (those little black rubber thingies that usually go inside a faucet--thankfully, although I don't have all the right tools, I have a wiz-bang collection of washers in every size and shape imaginable). It shouldn't have worked, but it did. Which is good, because by then it was 6pm, and I'd started on the first faucet at 10 am. *headsink*

The spiffy new black faucet and soap dispenser. It's a crappy picture. I was tired. So sue me.

So that's what happened to MY Wednesday. What did you do on yours? Do any good household repairs lately?

Fabulous Review of Wickedly Dangerous

*doing the happy author dance*

Author Jim C. Hines read an advanced reader copy of WICKEDLY DANGEROUS and reviewed it on his blog HERE (spoiler alert: he LIKED IT!).

I'm thrilled that Jim liked the book, not just because I love his writing and really respect him as an author, but because his Princess novels -- fabulous, original, kick-ass updates of some classic fairy tale characters -- are part of what inspired me to write the Baba Yaga series in the first place.

Go read Jim's review, then come back here and happy dance with me.

A Fabulous Wonderful Day with Nancy Holzner

I took a rare day off for fun yesterday, and went to see Madame Butterfly at the Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown with writer pal Nancy Holzner (a fellow Berkley writer, and author of the terrific Deadtown series). Nancy lives in Ithaca, almost two hours away, so we only get together a couple of times a year. You might remember that earlier this year we went to the Butterfly Conservatory...so I guess we have a butterfly theme going this year!

Nancy is a huge opera buff, and we went to the renowned Glimmerglass Opera near me a couple of years ago. We had such a good time, we decided to repeat the experience. And I am so glad we did.

Yesterday was one of those fabulous wonderful days that don't come along very often, and shine in your memory like a star. The weather was pretty much perfect,  a tad warm, but hey, it's summer. We enjoyed a lovely meal at Glimmerglass before our matinee, and then the opera itself was really terrific. And we got to catch up, and also spend lots of time talking writing, which is always a treat all by itself.

I didn't get any writing done yesterday (or anything else, really), but I did recharge my batteries by taking the break, and the fabulous wonderful day was a joy beyond measuring in hours. Thanks, Nancy!

The view from our lunch table

The view from our seats

The opera house

We're already making plans to go back next year, when they will be presenting Verdi's MacBeth.

Did you do anything fabulous and wonderful this summer?