All is revealed in a new edition of a book called the Darkside Zodiac, by English astrologer Stella Hyde — a ‘grudge-bearing Cancer’. This book reveals the traits of each horoscope sign but also their downfalls. So, how do you fare? As revealed, some of our favourite stars could experience their own signs’ downfalls… and we even explore what jobs they might suit should their careers in the limelight come to an abrupt end.
And for people who have always wondered but never got a chance to ask astrologers about all these things – the book exposes the deadly sin that their sign is most likely to suffer from.
Aries: March 21 to April 20
Greedy, argumentative, restless, wilful and self-obsessed, you are the zodiac’s permanently enraged adolescent. You have a problem with authority — show you a no-entry sign and you’re up the forbidden highway like a ferret up a drainpipe. Consequently, the nation’s A&Es are an Arian’s second home. Pathologically competitive, you have to come first and you’ll do anything to win — your concept of fair play means that you triumph. And subtle you’re not: you blunder through the world like Tigger gone rogue.
Favourite deadly sin: Wrath. It’s straightforward, uncomplicated and requires hardly any brain power. Something that’s useful for you. Just try to keep a lid on your road rage.
Romance: You’re a notches-on-the-bedpost guy or girl who always needs to be told you’re the best lover ever. Your affairs burn for, oh, several days, during which you are extravagantly possessive.
Friendships: You have rules for friends — do everything you say, admire your every action and never, ever criticise. You must be in control at every social event and get ragingly jealous if any of your friends do anything better than you.
Dream jobs: Explorer — so you can be the first and brag about it. Firefighter — finally, the chance to be a real hero.
Just don’t be tempted to start the fires.
Taurus: April 21 to May 21
You’re stupendously dull and move only when poked by a stick. A hidebound reactionary, you’re superglued into a rut several metres deep. You are an obstinate authoritarian with an overpowering urge for money. Your refusal to say the word ‘adapt’, let alone ‘change’, is a result of a lack of imagination. Your little bully brain can’t cope with anything complex, so you do nothing — and get buried alive by avalanches you refuse to notice.
Favourite Deadly Sin: Greed. ‘I’ll have them all, now’ is your first thought as a rush of desire for new stuff fogs your brain.
Romance: Good men and women have suffocated from boredom in your bed. You resent any attempt to bring spontaneity or novelty to proceedings.
Friendships: There’s a reason why the bull stands alone in a field. Partly it’s your murderous, though rare temper, but mostly it’s your obsession with money. After days of discussing your pension plans and investments, people lose the will to live.
Dream jobs: Property magnate — show you an unspoiled architectural masterpiece and you see identikit executive flats. Asset stripper — as you’re so insensitive to other’s feelings.
Gemini: May 22 to June 22
Under a layer of stage-school sincerity lurks a cold-hearted, bad-mouthing rumour-monger, scavenging information to do the dirty on someone later. You’re the con artist with a cheeky grin who detaches babies from their candy and laughs as you leave them crying. And you’re never satisfied. You always suspect there’s a more exciting party you’re not invited to. To block this out, you have to be entertained at all times. You’re in a permanent mid-life crisis — an irresponsible, discontented commitment-phobe still wearing a baseball cap backwards at 45.
Favourite Deadly Sins: Only the one? You need two for each twin. Pride (you know you look good), lust (because it’s fun), envy (of nice, shiny things) and greed. Greed is good.
Romance: You must never be bored in bed — woe betide a partner who doesn’t keep you entertained. For you, romance is about being with one lover while flirting with the next two.
Friendships: Born to network, at parties you constantly look over people’s shoulders, your radar on high alert for anyone prettier, more famous or more likely to get you that job.
Dream jobs: Triple agent — you love to outwit people. Office gossip — there’s nothing as satisfying as fawning and flattery
Cancer: June 23 to July 23
Grumpy, moody, tetchy and devious — not Snow White’s dwarves but a summary of your defining gracelessness.
You distrust life and have no faith in the future. This can make you very sentimental — and you well up at anything lonely or hopeless. You love to whine. You look for perceived slights and remember everything nasty ever said about you. You never give away anything people could use against you — you would use it against them.
Favourite Deadly Sin: Sloth. The paralysing immobility that comes when you let despair get you in its grip.
Romance: If you see someone you fancy, your strategy is to go into another room or ignore them in a pointed fashion so they do the chasing. That way, when it goes wrong, no one can jeer at you.
Friendships: You can relate to someone only if you feel needed. Clingy and manipulative, you’re master of the ‘mum manoeuvre’ — using long silences, suffocating devotion and mood swings to get people to do what you want.
Dream jobs: Agony aunt — so you can revel in vicarious suffering. Hermit — gloomy and you get to wear a hair shirt.
Leo: July 24 to August 23
Leos are all kings (or queens), but deep within your roaring lion heart you know you’re an arrogant, intolerant, pompous, self-centred bully.You absolutely have to be adored by everyone, which is your downfall because you’re easily flattered and fail to notice while you’re blissing out that others are stealing your powers.
You expect the world to revolve around you. When it doesn’t, you plunge into grand imperial sulk mode. You have double standards — what you deserve and what’s good enough for everyone else. And you’re never, ever wrong.
Favourite Deadly Sin: Pride. It’s known as the sin from which all others arise and you just love to be up with the top people.
Romance: It’s all about performance and applause. But you focus so hard on style, posturing and execution; you fail to notice your partner has gone to sleep.
Friendships: Leos don’t relate — they form alliances or allow themselves to be worshipped. A fearful snob, you ally yourself with people who make you look good — the powerful, important or just plain rich.
Dream jobs: Monarch — what better way to boss others about? Megastar — finally, the love of the little people.
Virgo: August 24 to Sep 23
Virgos are negative, tiny-hearted fusspots obsessed with detail which do nothing but carp and criticise.
You’re never wrong — but, if you are, you’d kill your firstborn rather than admit it. First impressions are cast in stone. If you met the Boston Strangler on a good day, you’d maintain he was a great guy.
You spend a lot of time obsessing about your health. It’s amazing how many diseases you contract — there’s no healing therapy you haven’t tried. You’re a sucker for cults, faux gurus and food fads.
Favourite Deadly Sin: Vanity — insufferably pleased with yourself, cruelly critical of everyone else.
Romance: Just like the service of your car, you do sex by the manual. (Lucky partner!) And when asked afterwards how it was for you, you deliver a comprehensive report.
Friendships: Want to know how you alienate people so thoroughly? It’s the little things, like sneering at non-organic aubergine dip. What you want from a friend is a punchbag to pummel with general put-downs.
Dream jobs: Forensic accountant — nothing like endless, boring nitpicking. Censor — mixes prudery, perversion and telling others what they shouldn’t think.
Libra: Sep 24 to Oct 23
Fickleness, idleness, extremes — that’s what Librans are made of. You can switch from Einstein to Homer Simpson, Jerry Springer to Mother Teresa without missing a beat. Your unique selling point is your inability to make a decision. Oh, how you can faff. You’re in danger of starving in the midst of plenty.
You can’t bring yourself to choose one thing when it would mean forfeiting others. But you’re not just hesitating over two gorgeous gifts — you know if you dither long enough, you’ll get both.
Favourite Deadly Sins: Vanity, greed and sloth — Librans would find it impossible to choose just the one.
Romance: You flatter, you flirt, you make boudoir eyes at your prey, but you don’t do unbridled lust because that would make you look sweaty and out of control. Besides, you’re in it for the money.
Friendships: Out of sight is out of mind — you dump people regularly. That’s because the love of your life is you, and only you.
Dream jobs: Fashion expert — though you’ll make those more successful look ugly and foolish. Spin doctor — turning anything damaging into gold.
Scorpio: Oct 24 to Nov 22
The Scorpio dark side is darker than the rest — the words ‘evil’ and ‘master mind’ seem inadequate. There’s no sin or depravity you wouldn’t consider, although you might not carry them out — sometimes it’s more exquisite to deny yourself than to indulge. You despise the weak, along with all the whingers and non-copers, and when you are world dictator, they will be ruthlessly put down. Your favourite sport is competitive mind games — you play long after others have gone home.
Favourite Deadly Sin: Lust. Lust for power, lust for money, lust for status, lust for revenge.
Romance: You may look like a love god, a cave troll or a librarian — it really doesn’t matter because Scorpio magnetism has nothing to do with looks. To you, sex is power — you’re always in control.
Friendships: Not a natural socialiser, you have lots of acquaintances, but only a clawful of close friends whom you’ve chosen because they’re loyal, non-competitive and respect your authority. Most people are scared of you, so they do what you say.
Dream jobs: Secret agent — you can do anything to anyone. City analyst — second guess anyone and get filthy rich
Sagittarius: Nov 23 to Dec 21
Brash, crass, loudmouthed and impetuous, you are the zodiac’s mindless hooligan, the game for anything. Russian roulette? Pass the Kalashnikov. You smash your way through barriers, even those set up for your safety. If you see a commitment in the distance, you vanish like a gambler’s lucky streak. And you’re tactless. Your best friend loses a leg in an accident (probably caused by you) and you ask if you can have their trainers.
Favourite Deadly Sins: All of them really, but lust, greed and gluttony dominate because you can’t resist indulgence and extremism.
Romance: No one could accuse you of lacking enthusiasm, but not everyone can swing from a trapeze by their ankles in that nonchalant way you have. You fail to grasp that passion counts more than perspiration.
Friendships: Careless and indiscriminate (you prefer to call it open and spontaneous), you will relate to anyone, but not for too long because they might tie you down.
Dream jobs: Stunt supremo — danger is your middle name. Mercenary — killing strangers is such a buzz, yah.
Capricorn: Dec 22 to Jan 20
Mean, miserly, petty, unforgiving — you have the stamina and relentless bloody-mindedness to keep wearing away at the world until it’s lost the will to live and follows your way.
Any resistance is exhausted by your endless spirit-dulling routine and petty regulations. You’d do anything to preserve your social status and so prefer to keep your ruthless, pathological ambition under wraps. And you’re a Scrooge — the Honourable Secretary of the Skinflint Society.
Favourite Deadly Sin: Avarice. A cold accumulation and insatiable hunger that sucks you dry from the inside.
Romance: It’s Saturday night, time for your weekly bout of connubial unpleasantness, so it’s on with the pyjamas and off with the light. Underneath it all, you’re as randy as anyone — you just won’t admit it.
Friendships: You have given up on friends because they don’t appreciate your help, even though your methods are clearly more efficient than theirs.
Dream jobs: Loss adjuster — so insurance companies can pay as little and late as possible. Politician — natural for a self-important status junkie.
Aquarius: Jan 21 to Feb 19
You are a chilly-hearted, disengaged observer of the human condition, who has never knowingly reacted spontaneously to any experience.
Perverse is how you like it. You’re surly when it would be more productive to be charming (your annual work review, for example), standoffish to your family and forgiving to your mates on skid row (they make you feel so superior).
You don’t do routine or reliable and although you want everyone to need you, you’d rather drink rocket fuel than let them know you need them.
Favourite Deadly Sin: Perhaps sloth, because you can be a tad languid, or maybe pride — but then you are superior to everyone else.
Romance: Hang around at Star Trek conventions and you’ll always get a date because there’s always somebody who goes for the oddball.
Friendships: People think you’re friendly because you hang out with so many groups, but that’s because you need large statistical samples to make your data viable.
Dream jobs: Mad scientist — finally, the chance to make a doomsday weapon. Croupier — dice are far more predictable than people.
Pisces : Feb 20 to March 20
You’ve a reputation for clustering around sickbeds, but vicarious wallowing springs to mind as, if you do manage to get anyone back on their feet and they start succeeding at life, you become jealous.
You drift about vaguely, feeling hard done by and appearing helpless and put upon, but you’re not — you know the manipulative value of martyrdom. And anyone who has to deal with you should always carry a tape recorder, for you’ll deny anything mutually agreed two minutes later.
Favourite Deadly Sin: Envy. You could’ve been a contender, if only your parents hadn’t held you back and everyone made your life a misery.
Romance: You love someone to take charge, but lovers shrink before the beady-eyed stare of the 2,000 cuddly toys in your boudoir.
Friendships: Quantity is the only thing that will absorb all your neediness, so you swim around with a huge school of acquaintances. Your nano-second attention span means you can’t be bothered to work on existing relationships, so you’re always looking for a New Best Friend.
Dream jobs: World dictator, the only way to make your fantasies a reality. Drug baron — it’ll all go well until you start sampling the merchandise.