The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan

A few months back, I reviewed a series by Rick Riordan called Percy Jackson and the Olympians.  (You can read my review of that series HERE!)  I really liked the series and was kind of sad when it ended.  But then I find ANOTHER series that kind of picks up where that one left off.  Kind of!

From the publisher:  Jason has a problem. He doesn’t remember anything before waking up on a school bus holding hands with a girl. Apparently she’s his girlfriend Piper, his best friend is a kid named Leo, and they’re all students in the Wilderness School, a boarding school for “bad kids.” What he did to end up here, Jason has no idea—except that everything seems very wrong.

Piper has a secret. Her father has been missing for three days, and her vivid nightmares reveal that he’s in terrible danger. Now her boyfriend doesn’t recognize her, and when a freak storm and strange creatures attack during a school field trip, she, Jason, and Leo are whisked away to someplace called Camp Half-Blood. What is going on?

Leo has a way with tools. His new cabin at Camp Half-Blood is filled with them. Seriously, the place beats Wilderness School hands down, with its weapons training, monsters, and fine-looking girls. What’s troubling is the curse everyone keeps talking about, and that a camper’s gone missing. Weirdest of all, his bunkmates insist they are all—including Leo—related to a god. 

This series introduces three other main characters that we haven't seen before: Jason, Piper and Leo.  In the beginning (and through most of the book!) Jason doesn't know who he is.  Strange things start to happen and Jason, Piper and Leo end up at Camp Half-Blood (the same camp as Percy Jackson in the last series!) and learn that they are demigods.  Only Percy Jackson is missing and the camp is kind of in an uproar.  The Lost Hero is the first book in a series of four.  (I picked up the second book at the library last night and can't WAIT to read it!)  The third book will be coming out in the fall of this year and the last one in the fall of 2013. Apparently we pick back up with Percy Jackson in the next book.  Yay!

Apparently Rick Riordan (his website is HERE!) has written another series for kids, The Kane Chronicles, that is the same type of book, but with Egyptian gods instead of Greek and Roman.  He has written some of the 39 Clues books (which are fabulous too!)  And he has written an adult series, Tres Navarre.  I've never read any of those, but I just might have to try one, just for fun.

The Lost Hero was given to my daughter by her grandma for Christmas (thanks Mom!) and she devoured it in two days.  She absolutely loved it (and she hasn't even read the Percy Jackson ones yet either!)  I give it 5 stars.  It was great!