The Tower of Nero by Rick Riordan, the last installment of TheTrials of Apollo series, came out on Oct. 6, exciting many fans around the world. 

Riordan started writing the book Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief in 2005 after telling his son a bedtime story about a demigod named Percy Jackson who had to complete tasks for the Greek gods. He decided to write a book about it, which became wildly popular and turned into a series called Percy Jackson and the Olympians. He finished the last book of the series, The Last Olympian, in 2009. 

In 2010, Riordan released the book The Lost Hero, which takes place six months after The Last Olympian with new and old characters with all new adventures. He finished The Blood of Olympus, which is the finale to The Heroes of Olympus series, in 2014. 

The ending of The Blood of Olympus left much to be desired, with a cliffhanger and the possibility of a relationship between the popular character Nico di Angelo and a certain Will Solace. Much to the joy of fans, Riordan released the first book in his new The Trials of Apollo series in 2016, The Hidden Oracle, in which we got new characters, official news on the new couple, Will and Nico and relief from the frustrating cliffhanger. 

Riordan’s books are cherished dearly because of the fast, action-packed pace and great representation. He includes people of different races, backgrounds, sexualities and lifestyles. Riordan knows that everyone is different and there isn’t just one type of person, family or story. 

His series about Norse mythology, Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, is loved dearly for the amount of representation he includes. With a homeless, pansexual lead character, his gender fluid love interest, deaf elf friend and Muslim companion, it’s hard not to find yourself in his characters. In 2010, Riordan released The Kane Chronicles, which focuses on Egyption mythology which is also widely loved. 

When The Tower of Nero was released on Oct. 6, just two months ago, everyone was enthralled to see how he would wrap up The Trials of Apollo series and the Percy Jackson series in general, since he announced that The Trials of Apollo series would be the last add-on to that series. Everyone was excited to know that Nico di Angelo, Riordan’s first gay character who was revealed in The House of Hades, the fourth book in The Heroes of Olympus series, would be a main character. When his relationship with the son of Apollo, Will Solace, was first officially canon, fans immediately loved that Nico, who had been through so much in his life, had finally found himself in a happy, loving relationship. In The Tower of Nero, the couple end up being some of the heroes of the story when they help to finally take down Nero. 

The basic summary of The Trials of Apollo is that Zeus blames Apollo for the war in The Heroes of Olympus, so as a punishment, sends him down to Earth as a mortal for the third time. There he meets the demigod daughter of Demeter, Meg McCaffrey, who claims him as her servant. In The Hidden Oracle, Apollo is basically a stuck-up, snobby god gone human who wishes to be a god again and get out of his deadweight body of Lester Papadopoulos. Throughout the books, he starts to see the world differently and learns compassion. His friendship with Meg gets stronger and he even says he would die to save Meg because he has grown to love her as a sister. The two have a special bond that not even evil Roman emperors brought back to life can break. Together they must face Commodus, Caligula and Nero before they take control of all of the oracles and become unstoppable. Along the way, they meet up with well-loved characters from The Heroes of Olympus series, which is a great surprise. 

The Tower of Nero is an addicting book which will keep you turning pages for hours without realizing how much time has passed. The main character Apollo, under the alias Lester Papadopoulos, is hilarious and such a relatable character, with him breaking the fourth wall to make the readers feel a part of the story. You will find yourself with a mix of emotions while reading about the end of Meg and Lester’s journey. Love for all the characters, completely smitten with the adorable couple moments of Nico and Will, anticipation for what will happen and tugs on your heart strings as an unexpected visit from the ghost of a dearly-loved character comes back for an emotional scene with Apollo. 

This book is the perfect wrap-up for all of the series everyone loves, but Riordan slyly leaves small clues implying that maybe he could make a crossover book of all his series or a side book of adventures between the ever-popular couple, Will Solace and Nico di Angelo. 

So while Riordan might have wrapped up the series, he definitely left openings for side books which would all bring us running to the nearest bookstore to purchase.