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5 Reasons We Can’t Wait for Rick Riordan’s The Burning Maze!
The Burning Maze, the third book in The Trials of Apollo series by Rick Riordan, comes out Tuesday, May 1st! Yay! Here are five things I can’t wait to read about:
Grover!
We get Grover back as a major character! Riordan has also promised page time for Jason and Piper too, can I can’t wait to see them again. Likewise, I’m curious as all get out about what’s happening at the Roman Camp Jupiter…
The Labyrinth
The Labyrinth, where much of this book is set, is one of the creepiest parts of the mythological world; it’s practically alive, and totally unpredictable. Even though it’s not quite as malevolent as it once was, it’s still not a nice place, and so we’ll almost certainly get lots of pulse-pounding excitement, with new sorts of mythological monsters to fight.
Mystery
Will the mystery of Georgina, Apollo’s mysterious daughter, be resolved? The last words of Triphonus to Apollo were “consider that mystery my last gift to you, Father. I hope it drives you insane!” (The Dark Prophecy, page 341) which suggests there’s more to this story waiting to be revealed.
Romance???
Will Apollo, now that’s he’s on his way to being a decent person, capable of having a meaningful relationship, fall in love again, perhaps with Reyna (though we were told in The Blood of Olympus no demigod would ever capture her heart, that doesn’t rule out gods…). Of course, Apollo will presumably be in his rather unswoon-worthy Lester form till the very end of the series, so maybe not.
A Twist?
And most importantly, will something terrible happen to someone? Riordan has been pretty good in general about keeping most of his beloved characters alive, but the most recent prophesy is not exactly reassuring. Dark prophesies aside, there’s the unpleasant comment from Zeus in The Dark Prophecy, the second book of this series, that Apollo’s “real test is yet to come” (p. 314) and Commodus’ last words “You have no idea what’s being prepared for your friends in the east and the west! They will die. All of them!” (p. 374) which somehow suggests to me that something really bad is going to happen. Apollo was still growing from total egotist to decent person during The Dark Prophecy, and is now at the point where having something bad happen to a friend would be truly hard for him. Frank for one may be in danger; his life depends on an unburned stick, and so a burning maze would be especially dangerous for him.
Ships in 1-2 days.
Of course, I have many other questions. Will Meg’s table manners ever improve (and why does she eat so ravenously? Is she going to morph into something non-human? Being human hasn’t been kind to her…). Will Meg’s mother, or possibly big sister Persephone, show up? When will Apollo face his reckoning for breaking his oath he swore on the river Styx? Who is the third member of the Imperial Triumvirate? Probably it’s Caligula (references to a white horse and to boots point to him, and he was certainly awful enough to qualify), but I’m still curious….
I’ll be at my local Barnes and Noble at nine in the morning, desperate to plunge right in. What questions do you hope to have answered?
The Burning Maze is on B&N bookshelves May 1.