Coffins, Ravens, and Unicorns REVIEWING The Tyrant's Tomb

Welcome back to The Real World According To Sam! Today we continue our countdown to Tower of Nero on another Magic Monday by reviewing the fourth book in the Trials of Apollo series!

We are 1 week and 1 day away from the release of The Tower of Nero (October 6, 2020)!


This is a The Burning Maze SPOILER LAND, clearly, because this is a sequel. 

This review of The Tyrant's Tomb is completely spoiler free for this installment.

The Tyrant's Tomb

Author: Rick Riordan
Genre: YA Fantasy
Year: 2019


The Tyrant's Tomb

Synopsis:

In his penultimate adventure, a devastated but determined Apollo travels to Camp Jupiter, where he must learn what it is to be a hero, or die trying.

It's not easy being Apollo, especially when you've been turned into a human and banished from Olympus. On his path to restoring five ancient oracles and reclaiming his godly powers, Apollo (aka Lester Papadopoulos) has faced both triumphs and tragedies. Now his journey takes him to Camp Jupiter in the San Francisco Bay Area, where the Roman demigods are preparing for a desperate last stand against the evil Triumvirate of Roman emperors. Hazel, Reyna, Frank, Tyson, Ella, and many other old friends will need Apollo's aid to survive the onslaught. Unfortunately, the answer to their salvation lies in the forgotten tomb of a Roman ruler...someone even worse than the emperors Apollo has already faced.

Review:

Hi. So Jason is dead. That's....a thing we have to deal with now. We really do, because the whole beginning of this book is literally carrying Jason in his coffin to Camp Jupiter. Then, we have his funeral. So....yeah, here we are. I wasn't prepared for this and I'm sure many of the other fans reading this series weren't prepared for this. The last series didn't fully give us a death (depending on how you view Leo's plan), but they gave us Percy and Annabeth in Tartarus...but no one died. The Last Olympian gave us a couple of deaths and that was really sad, but it also wasn't main characters. As in, it wasn't one of our main three. Jason was one of our main, main characters. He was literally a son of one of the Big Three. He's technically Apollo's half-brother. This is just...all kinds of messed up. Moving on!

As mentioned we deal with...all that up there ↑↑↑ and then we get into more Oracle saving and near death experiences. In this book we get to quest with Apollo and Meg as usual. This time we add Frank, Hazel, and Reyna as our familiar faces within the adventure. We also get to meet a new character, named Lavinia. She is part of Camp Jupiter, and I really liked her. She was lightly eccentric, but she is really a force to be reckoned with at times. She doesn't do well at following the rules of Camp Jupiter, which makes her slightly reminiscent of some of the Camp Half-Blood campers. She had a good arc in this one. The characters get to do awesome things and they're as fun as ever. 

What do we have for action? For starters, being attacked while carrying a coffin. That always makes pallbearing a difficult proposition. Eventually we move onto the main quest and things don't really get any easier. Like the cover shows, we have big birds with a personal vendetta against Apollo that Edgar Allan Poe probably let loose just for fun. There are some Germani, a dude named Tarquin who is not a Grand Moff (but IS a Grand Pain in the Butt), and some eurynomoi. You know, just another typical day of being human and having demigod companions. Eventually we get a very large battle that is reminiscent of attacks on the camps we have seen before in terms of force organization and enemy numbers, but way earlier than camp attacks tend to happen in a series. This Triumvirate is not kidding around. Apollo is in for some serious trouble. Also, we have unicorns in this book, and who doesn't love unicorns? 

Unlike the last book, I actually thoroughly enjoyed this one and would re-read it. I liked it. The adventure was fun, I freaked out a few times about dangers our heroes faced, and I'm really looking forward to the next and final book in this series. That will be the culmination of a new adventure and I get the feeling it is going to be BIG trouble. We still have a week before it drops and unfortunately I don't know when or if the library is going to get it...so I don't know when I'm going to be reading it! I do promise though, that when I finally get to, we will talk about it! I'm getting ahead of myself though. Let's get that rating shall we? I give The Tyrant's Tomb a Lone Star rating of ✯✯

This concludes another review here at The Real World According To Sam where I bring the books right to your screen, and even throw in my own two cents about them!

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