Paper & Blood was the right book at the right time. Kevin Hearne writes with so much heart and so much wit, I could not stop myself from devouring this book in one evening. I loved seeing some character development in everyone, especially Connor! Gladys Who Has Seen Some Shite is my current favorite character, I can't wait for the next book <3

Received arc from Little Brown Book Group UK and Netgalley for honest read and review.
Second book in the fabulous new series Ink & Sigil by Kevin Hearne.This book has one of my favourite characters in Al MacBarrais, a Scottish Sigil writer and all round fun guy to be with.
I absolutely enjoyed this second stint with Al, Buck (best Hobgoblin ever),Nadia and if course Agnes,who has seen some sh**e.
We also have Connor(Atticus) from Iron Druid making an appearance with the Morrigan,and if course the dogs..
I don't think we needed so much of Atticus as story should be about Al , but overall a great read and really looking forward to the next in series.
Definitely recommend this one ,especially if you like Iron Druid series.

I really have rather fallen in love with Al. It’s such a refreshing change to find a sympathetic, enjoyable protagonist who also happens not to be in the full flush of youth – and yes… I’m aware that Atticus is two thousand years old. But he looks like a twenty-something, whereas Al doesn’t. The extra weight of years and wry wisdom has completely won me over. It doesn’t hurt that I also enjoy the company he keeps, especially his foul-mouthed hobgoblin companion, Buck Foi and Nadia. And yes… there is a lot of swearing in this book, so if you find that offensive, then this won’t be for you. It was the one thing that, at times, slightly niggled as I wished that Al had reported that Buck Foi cursed, rather than giving me the benefit of all the sweariness. But it wasn’t a dealbreaker, because I enjoyed the characters and the action.

And the great big bonus for me is that Atticus and his dogs also heavily feature in this adventure. I’ve really missed tucking into yet another amusing story featuring Atticus since the Iron Druid series finished, so I was delighted that he has such a big role in this book. And it is also fascinating to see him filtered through Al’s viewpoint. As ever, Hearne tells a cracking tale, full of action and suspense. As the mystery of the missing sigil agents deepens, Hearne’s warm-hearted, larger-than-life characters are genuinely concerned. When we meet the horrible monsters intent to tearing apart everyone they meet, I did wonder if we’d ever see them again. Because for all his folksy fun, Hearne isn’t afraid to kill off a likeable, affectionate character if it fits the plot.

A large part of the story is set in the Australian outback, which is effectively evoked and certainly adds to the vividness and tension, while Al and his gang attempt their desperate rescue. As ever with Hearne, I didn’t see the denouement coming – but that didn’t stop it being entirely satisfying. While there is lots of action and humour, I also appreciated the discussions and stories between the characters and the philosophical deliberations. All in all, this was a thoroughly enjoyable read, and is highly recommended for urban fantasy fans with a liking for their fantasy with a strong Celtic twist and lots of quirky humour. While I obtained an arc of Paper & Blood from Netgalley, the opinions I have expressed are unbiased and my own.
9/10

A humourous and fabulous read. This has got me hooked from the first paragraph. It was so fantasy-tic and humorous with a hint of mystery. All the characters Al,buck,Nadia were most promising, the plot was so convulated as it is woven intricately with careful balance of science and bringing in the element of magic.Kevin Hearne did it again,as for the intricacy of the plot, it makes me bewildered. I loved ink and sigil , now this book is top notch. It beats ink and sigil and sets a new benchmark. Can't wait for the next book in the series !

The second in a fun series. Set in the world of the Iron Druid (see previous books) we do get to meet the Druid (and his dogs) in this one.
When some of Al’s fellow Sigil Agents go missing, Al heads off to Australia to find out what drew them there and if they are still alive. And of course he takes his right hand Hobgoblin along too.
The investigation in the wilds of Australia is a dangerous one so the Iron Druid comes to help, but even so the odds are stacked against them. Cue some extra support and familiar characters but even that might not be enough to save the day.
It’s fun and clever as one might expect, although at times felt slightly padded by diversions into stories told by the characters. But lots of nice ideas here and the fun the author is having comes clearly through in his writing.

The second Ink & Sigil book didn’t draw me in quite as fast as the first, nor did it make a similar impression at the end. Though the story starts right at the get-go, it seemed to drag, and the author’s habit of pausing everything for descriptions of drinks, paper and ink didn’t help the matters.

Once the action got going, it held my interest a bit better. There were more questions than answers, but Australia was fun (with or without giant spiders), and it was great to see Atticus/Connor through the eyes of another character, though it occasionally felt like Al deferred to Atticus and wasn’t the hero of his own book. And Oberon is always perfect, even if he needed a translator.

3.5 of 5 stars
https://lynns-books.com/2021/08/12/paper-and-blood-ink-and-sigil-2-by-kevin-hearne/
My Five Word TL:DR Review: Mixed feelings for this one.

Paper and Blood is the second of the Ink and Sigil books by Kevin Hearne. This is a series that is set in the same world/universe as The Iron Druid Chronicles and is therefore a contemporary setting with infinite supernatural possibilities.

I really enjoyed the first in series, primarily because of the characters. Al MacBharrais is a blast of well needed fresh air in the urban fantasy genre. He’s over 60,a widower and also suffering from a curse that prevents him having any real relationships with others, on top of this he’s a sigil agent which means he can wield magic through the use of symbols drawn onto paper with special ink. There are a number of sigil agents scattered across the world and in this instalment a real threat is posed to Al’s counterpart from Australia who has gone missing. Al immediately travels to Victoria to investigate and within fairly short order the body count escalates.

Now, I mentioned in my five word review that I had mixed feelings so let me start there. What this series really has going for it is Kevin Hearne’s fantastic sense of humour. I’ve written before about this author and the fact that he clearly enjoys himself when he’s writing and this shines through on the page. His books are always a good deal of fun and he can create lovable characters with apparent ease. In fact, as I also mentioned above, the characters are what really hooked me in the first instalment. I also mentioned in my review of book No.1 that the plot felt a little scattered and wasn’t the winning element of the book for me and I think I had similar feelings in the case of Paper and Blood, which to be fair isn’t to say the plot here is bad (because it isn’t) so much that it, again, wasn’t my favourite part of the story.

I liked the setting with Al and his companions travelling through the bush encountering all sorts of creatures and traps as their journey progressed. There’s an action adventure feel to this one, quick pacing and plenty of skirmishes, but, at the same time, I think I would have preferred to spend more time with Al in his Scottish setting as that’s something I really enjoyed in the first book and missed a little here.

To the characters – which I think was probably one of my main issues with this instalment. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to mention here that Atticus (of the Iron Druid Chronicles (IDCs) and his two trusty dogs join Al for this encounter. Now, don’t get me wrong, I like Atticus very much and his dog Oberon is quite possibly my favourite fictional pooch – but, for me, it felt like Atticus stole the show a little, or more to the point Al seemed to take a back step and felt much flimsier than in the first book. In fact, in some respects this felt like an attempt to bring some closure to the IDCs, maybe not even closure now I really think about it because it still felt like certain issues remained unanswered. I think what I’m trying to say in a roundabout fashion is that this felt more like a way to bring Atticus back into the picture and whilst I think IDC lovers will enjoy his role here, the fact that new readers didn’t need to be familiar with that particular series felt like a bonus at the time and so this instalment muddies those waters a little in my opinion.

Overall, this is a series that I would like to continue with but I’m hopeful that Al will recapture the feelings he inspired from Ink and Sigil and regain some of the agency that he seemed to lose a little here.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publishers, for which my thanks. The above is my own opinion.

We are back with Al, Buck & Nadia, but this time the action is transplanted to Australia.

When the Asian based sigil agents go missing whilst on a mission to find out what tripped their wards the remaining apprentice calls in Al to help.

What follows is a non-stop adventure with plenty of action and peril. The Iron Druid also gets drawn into the action and we discover that this is more to do with him than the sigil agents.

Along the way we learn more about Al’s team with stories from Buck and the Iron Druid and Al’s curses are never far from his mind and this time he has more people to ask if they might know who placed them.

Fast-paced, sprinkled with a wry sense of humour and plenty of action, a fun read.

My thanks to NetGalley and Orbit for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 rounded up

I was granted eARC access to Paper & Blood via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you! My thoughts are my own and my review is honest.

You know the phrase "be careful what you wished for?" I wished for more Atticus and Oberon. Sorry, Connor and Oberon. Unlike the various times Atticus had to take on other monikers in the Iron Druid series we don't revert to calling him Atticus in familiar company here, and it honestly threw me for a loop at first wondering if Atticus had trained up an apprentice Connor and passed on the "Iron Druid" title. I'm seeing some early reviews coming in from reviewers who admit they didn't read the Iron Druid series who feel lost, but honestly, I feel lost too and I did read the series. I loved it and wasn't ready for it to end! These books aren't supposed to be very far into the future, but Atticus/Connor feels like he has aged significantly. For a man who's already lived hundreds of decades, a decade or less shouldn't have that effect. Yeah, Ragnorok didn't go well, but he's had some life-altering run-ins with the gods before. He spent most of the last millennium as the only living druid for goodness sake! Connor feels centuries older than the Atticus we parted with at the end of Scourged. Minor spoiler for the Iron Druid series: [And you know what makes me mad? The nearly-immortal magic man who survived being BEHEADED apparently can't regrow an arm. This is somewhat addressed within Paper & Blood, but not early enough to have quelled my annoyance before it bubbled too much. (hide spoiler)]

Putting Connar and Oberon aside and treating this book as the second book in a brand new series, pretending we don't already know Connor and Oberon, this book is okay. It's not great, it's not terrible. I'm liking Al more and more, which is impressive considering I already called book one a 5/5 star read and said if I can't have more Atticus and Oberon then I'll gladly take Al and Buck. I love how much more we get to know him and his story, and all the answers we're getting to questions we didn't know we had about his employees. (Favourite quote: "Do you know what she is?" "She's Canadian." ...)

The reappearance of The Morrigan and her attempt at living a new life is very entertaining and I can't wait to follow this storyline more. I love all the ambiguous answers and even more unanswered questions about who/what "Gladys Who Has Seen Some Shite" really is. This book had some very entertaining moments and a whole lot of character and world-building.

In terms of the overarching series plot, this book doesn't make progress. Iron Druid definitely had that problem too with some books being more tangential than necessary, but not so early on in the series. Al doesn't really make any progress on the curse conundrum, and Buck definitely fell into Oberon's shadow and became the annoying sidekick next to a much cuter, more innocent goof.

I'm still very much looking forward to continuing this series and I hope my disappointments with this one are just a sign of the dreaded "middle book syndrome" striking unfortunately early. I'm also optimistic about the future of Connor/Atticus as a character in this series. I can see the potential for a redemption/restoration arch for him, and I really hope that whenever Al and Connor part ways for good that we'll be parting ways with Atticus, not Connor.

Do I recommend this book? Yes, if you've read book one, and I'll add that you should probably also be familiar with the original series. I wouldn't say you need to have finished The Iron Druid Chronicles, though this book does contain a spoiler for book nine, but you'd probably be better off knowing more about "Connor" than Al does before starting this one.

I enjoyed Paper & Blood, although, not as much as the first book and I still have a few mixed feelings about it. I didn’t quite expect as much of the action to take place in Australia as it did. Normally books have at least a bit of preamble before they hotfoot it to the main destination named in the synopsis so I was expecting some wonderful Glasgow action again, and instead, it felt a bit like an afterthought. I just hope that’s not how the rest of the series is going to be because as much as I love the characters, I love a series based in Glasgow much more.

As I mentioned in my first impressions, you can take a Glaswegian out of Scotland… etcetera. and Buck Foi, Al’s trusty hobgoblin was on hand to bring some much-needed Scots to the conversations. It was interesting to have Scots and Australian slang bouncing off each other and the new character that was introduced was absolutely wonderful. It was great to learn more about sigil agents through that character and from a new perspective to what we have already seen.

While I was previously excited about seeing Atticus, Oberon and Starbuck again I found the excitement wearing off as the book reached its conclusion and it became obvious that this was less of a sigil agent and Al MacBharrais book, and more an Iron Druid book with the sigil agents playing side roles. I know that sounds a bit harsh, however, Paper & Blood felt more like a wrap up of the Iron Druid Chronicles series than it did a second book in a spin-off series.

That’s not to say it wasn’t a good book, it was just a bit disappointing (and a tad frustrating) to see Al, Nadia and the whole Glasgow cast have their stories put on hold just to finish a left open thread from Scourged, the last book in the Iron Druid Chronicles series. I’m going to hazard a guess that Hearne was only contracted for nine books and had more of a story to say, and this was the way he managed to do it. Like with the trip to Australia, I’m ok with it as long as book three gets back on track.

Paper & Blood wasn’t a complete waste of time when it came to Al’s story; we find out more about his curses, we find out some very scary stuff about a certain person in his life and umm… someone has come to join him in Scotland and YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHO IT IS. There is also a whole bunch of hobgoblin lore and I loved the role Hearne has given them in the Ink & Sigil/Iron Druid Chronicles universe; it’s not what you probably expect, but when you think about it, it makes perfect sense. There is also a hobgoblin story in the middle of the book that Buck tells everyone which is just fabulous.

Paper & Blood wasn’t quite what I expected or what I wanted, but it was still an enjoyable second book in the series. Hopefully book three will return us to Glasgow again and the storyline with Al’s curses will progress a bit further. He picked up a few clues in this book and had headed to the Mitchell Library at the end, suggesting that the next book could start with something he has found in his research.

There’s bound to be plenty of hijinks with Glasgow’s latest resident, and there are a few other things from this book that are going to come up at some point. We saw some of Nadia but things were a bit hectic and she was busy using her Battle Seer skills to save the day. There’s a long-overdue chat about some of that and her friendship with the new resident is going to be both beautiful and hilarious. I almost feel sorry for Al! :D

I enjoyed the first book in this spin-off series very much - it was also my first Kevin Hearne book, but this second book made me wish I had read The Iron Druid series first. There were instances when I knew I was missing information.

Furthermore this book doesn't really move the original plot, finding out who cursed Al, forward.

It was a good read, but now I am not sure I want to continue with the series without having read at least one Iron Druid book first.

I've been a huge fan of Kevin Hearne for years. I loved the Iron Druid, enjoyed his series with Dalilah Lawson and fell in love with Ink & Sigil series since I read Ink and Sigil.
This is another very funny, entertaining and gripping story that made me laugh and kept turning pages.
There's plenty going on in this fast paced story, I was happy to meet again Atticus and Oberon and loved the new characters.
Gladys Who Has Seen Some Shite is a strike of genius, I love we got to know more about this character and who she really is.
The world building is excellent, we learn something more about the world of sigil agent and Al's curse.
There's plenty of humour and I laughed a lot.
I can't wait to read the next book.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine