When we last left our erstwhile heroes, siblings Carter and Sadie Kane, they had defeated the god Set but had realized there was a greater threat: Apophis, the god of Chaos, is rising, and if the Kanes don’t find a way to stop him, he will swallow the sun and the world as we know it will end. To do this, the Kanes need to piece together the Book of Ra — no easy task — and wake the Sun God in hopes that he can rally the gods and magicians in order to put a stop to Chaos once and for all.

It sounds like a tough job, but if anyone can do it Carter and Sadie can — with a little help from new trainees Walt and Jaz, as well as the god of dwarves, and one of my favorite characters, Bes.

A note of warning: it’s a nearly 500-page book, and the first 100 pages are glacially slow. So slow, that for the first time I can remember, I considered abandoning a Riordan book. I stuck it out: it is Rick Riordan after all, and I just didn’t believe he could write a clunker. And he didn’t. I’m going to pull out the tired rock analogy here, because it fits. This book is a huge, enormous boulder. And once it gets going, it really goes. It’s interesting, and funny, and uses magic in clever ways. I still feel like I’m missing something with not knowing my Egyptian mythology well, but for the most part I thought this book gelled better than The Red Pyramid. At the very least, while the book wraps up, it leaves for some interesting threads to be dealt with in the next novel.

There’s something for everyone: twists and turns, adventure and a wee bit of romance, magic and intrigue, humor and suspense. In the end, it’s more than worth the time it takes to get through the beginning.

Rated: Mild for some magical violence and intensity.