5 Reasons We Can’t Wait for Rick Riordan’s The Burning Maze!

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…

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.

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….