Happy New Year

31 December 2016


So, another year has come and gone, and I doubt I’m the only one who was a tad disappointed by certain events1 this year. Plus all those celebrity deaths.

It has been an interesting2 year on a global scale.

Book & filmwise there has been some great stuff released. I’m going to just run a query & see what I awarded top marks to. Course this only covers films/books I reviewed here. I have seen Rogue One and loved it, but it came to close to Christmas so I never got around to rambling about it. Maybe when I go see it for a second time I’ll manage to figure out what to say about it.

Ten Stars :

Cover Title

31 October 2016 by Dearbhla
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Wayfarers ; #2 Lovelace was once merely a ship’s artificial intelligence. When she wakes up in an new body, following a total system shut-down and reboot, she has no memory of...

16 October 2016 by Dearbhla
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In August 2014, Farida, like any ordinary teenage girl, was enjoying the summer holidays before her last year at school. But Farida lived in the mountains of northern Iraq — and...

9 October 2016 by Dearbhla
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Upon her arrival in London, an 18-year-old Irish girl begins anew as a drama student, with all the hopes of any young actress searching for the fame she’s always dreamed of....

23 September 2016 by Dearbhla
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Small Change : book 2 In 1949, eight years after the “Peace with Honor” was negotiated between Great Britain and Nazi Germany by the Farthing Set, England has completed its slide...

21 August 2016 by Dearbhla
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IMDB description : New England, 1630: William and Katherine lead a devout Christian life, homesteading on the edge of an impassible wilderness, with five children. When their newborn son mysteriously vanishes...

14 August 2016 by Dearbhla
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Watch the story of history’s greatest gladiator unfold with graphic violence and the passions of the women that love them. This is Spartacus. Last week I finally finished watch the whole...

29 July 2016 by Dearbhla
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Eimear McBride’s debut tells, with astonishing insight and in brutal detail, the story of a young woman’s relationship with her brother, and the long shadow cast by his childhood brain tumour....

4 May 2016 by Dearbhla
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Political interference in the Avengers’ activities causes a rift between former allies Captain America and Iron Man. And wasn’t it great? First thing I said after watching it was “let’s watch...

1 May 2016 by Dearbhla
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Book three in the Spiritwalker trilogy. Short, totally spoiler-free review is “aahhhhh, read it!” but three words may not be enough to persuade everyone. So to that I’ll add that this...

18 January 2016 by Dearbhla
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I find myself unable to really blurb this film. I mean, yeah, the bare bones of it are an orphan kid tries to find himself through boxing. Gets mentored by his...

17 January 2016 by Dearbhla
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Book 1 of The Light of the World trilogy. The world is always changing, but Britain in the seventh century was a time of huge upheaval in society. Christianity is beginning...

2 January 2016 by Dearbhla
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ISBN : 9780297870517 When I hear death row I usually don’t think “enchanted”, and I usually don’t look for books set in prisons or about people awaiting execution. But all last...

Nine Stars :

Cover Title

20 December 2016 by Dearbhla
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Into thin air, Sylvie goes missing, and as Jules stumbles in grief, a fox cub is born. A shadow fox, spirit and animal in one. From the minute the cub opens...

10 December 2016 by Dearbhla
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Fifteen years ago, Susan Morrow left her first husband Edward Sheffield, an unpublished writer. Now, she’s enduring middle class suburbia as a doctor’s wife, when out of the blue she receives...

7 December 2016 by Dearbhla
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January 1937. Clouds of war are gathering over a fogbound London. Twenty-eight year old Jack is poor, lonely, and desperate to change his life, so when he’s offered the chance to...

20 November 2016 by Dearbhla
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IMDb blurb : An art gallery owner is haunted by her ex-husband’s novel, a violent thriller she interprets as a veiled threat and a symbolic revenge tale. If I had to...

4 November 2016 by Dearbhla
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The Memoirs of Lady Trent #4 Even those who take no interest in the field of dragon naturalism have heard of Lady Trent’s expedition to the inhospitable deserts of Akhia. Her...

19 September 2016 by Dearbhla
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Awful things happen. Sometimes you’re left alive, but it leaves a Mark. They aren’t tattoos, and they express your hidden powers—and your hidden desires. They grow as you use them. And...

13 July 2016 by Dearbhla
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Anna Francis lives in a tall old house with her father and her doll Penelope. She is a refugee, a piece of flotsam washed up in England by the tides of...

5 July 2016 by Dearbhla
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Days before his release from prison, Shadow’s wife, Laura, dies in a mysterious car crash. Numbly, he makes his way back home. On the plane, he encounters the enigmatic Mr Wednesday,...

20 June 2016 by Dearbhla
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Book 2 of The Sunbolt Chronicles In the year since she cast her sunbolt, Hitomi has recovered only a handful of memories. But the truths of the past have a tendency...

19 June 2016 by Dearbhla
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Originally read 17th November 2013, reread 19th June 2016. And I still love it. Book 1 of The Sunbolt ChroniclesI chose this for my Diverse Universe reading because I liked the...

10 May 2016 by Dearbhla
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Mary Doria Russell, the bestselling, award-winning author of The Sparrow, returns with Epitaph. An American Iliad, this richly detailed and meticulously researched historical novel continues the story she began in Doc,...

12 April 2016 by Dearbhla
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On the 31st March 2016 Imre Kertész died. I hadn’t heard of him before I saw the post on Metafilter marking his passing, but in the thread his first book, Fatelessness...

23 March 2016 by Dearbhla
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Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp are names that are linked together with gunfights and dust and the US West. In Doc Russell takes a look at their lives away from the...

17 March 2016 by Dearbhla
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Grieving the loss of his mother Peter discovered an orphaned fox cub and took him in. Ever since then he and Pax have become almost inseparable. But now war is coming....

What about you? Any standouts from 2016? or anything that you’re really looking forward to in 2017?


  1. Brexit & Trump, yes I’m looking at you 

  2. depending on how you define interesting 

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4 Responses

  1. Aarti says:

    I just read The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet a few months ago, so I am very excited to read the companion novel! I didn’t realize it was out already, I’ll have to get on that!

    Happy new year :-)

    • Fence says:

      Oooohhh, you have it to look forward to so! Its so great. Actually I’m just going to go add those two titles to my 2017 TBR list, because I want to reread them at some point :)
      It is really different from Long Way, but feels the same, if you know what I mean. Hopeful and warm and just plain enjoyable.

  2. Kailana says:

    Happy New Year!!! I have enjoyed reading your blog over this year and look forward to following along with you in 2017. :)
    Kailana´s last blog post ..Week in Review – Week 52