Wrath of the Triple Goddess

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Wrath of the Triple Goddess (2024) is a middle-grade fantasy adventure novel by Rick Riordan. It is the second novel in The Senior Year Adventures series and seventh in his Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, both of which follow contemporary American preteens and teens descended from Greek gods. At the center of the series is Percy Jackson, son of Sally Jackson and the Greek god Poseidon. The Senior Year Adventures is a planned trilogy set during Percy’s senior year of high school as he attempts to secure three college recommendation letters from various Greek gods, exploring themes around friendship, growth, and responsibility for self and others.

Rick Riordan is the author of six middle-grade/young adult series that adapt Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Norse myths to the present day. His books and series have been popularly received bestsellers and have inspired film and television adaptations, including the 2023 Disney series Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

This guide refers to the 2024 Disney Hyperion e-book.

Plot Summary

Having successfully obtained a recommendation from Ganymede, a mortal-turned-divinity who tasked Percy with recovering his chalice in The Chalice of the Gods, the first book in The Senior Year Adventures, Percy still needs two letters. On a Monday four days before Halloween, he receives his second recommendation opportunity from Hecate, goddess of sorcery and crossroads.

Hecate instructs Percy to pet-sit her polecat, Gale, and hellhound, Hecuba, both of whom were human in ancient times but have since been transformed into their respective animal forms. Believing that Halloween is a modern festival in her honor, Hecate informs Percy that she will be traveling around the world to receive offerings. She allows Percy’s girlfriend, Annabeth, and satyr best friend, Grover, to assist him.

After school, the trio arrives at her mansion, which resembles a real-life haunted house, and she gives them a tour, showing them where to find Gale’s and Hecuba’s leashes and food and how to feed her eels. When Grover asks to see the kitchen, Hecuba brings them to the laboratory where she brews her potions, pointing out a strawberry milkshake that she says they absolutely must not drink, though she gives them permission to transfer it into the freezer. Percy registers what a temptation this will be for Grover, who loves strawberries.

They survive their first challenging attempt to walk the animals, and Percy is cautiously optimistic. However, while he and Annabeth are at school the following day, Grover cannot resist drinking the milkshake, which magnifies his size and strength exponentially. Percy and Annabeth return from school to find Grover has torn apart the mansion and passed out in the wreckage. When he regains consciousness, he is devastated to see the destruction he caused. Even worse, they discover Gale and Hecuba escaped when the mansion doors blew open.

Percy feels angry at Grover, though he recognizes that he and Annabeth are also partly at fault for leaving him alone with a strawberry milkshake. Annabeth helps both Grover and Percy by focusing on correcting the disastrous situation. Percy decides to call on his own hellhound, Mrs. O’Leary (given to him in The Battle of the Labyrinth), in the hope that she will be able to help him track Hecuba down, but instead, Mrs. O’Leary leads him to an abandoned hellhound puppy who is badly hurt. Percy names him “Nope” after the sound his bark makes and, unwilling to leave him behind, brings him back to Hecate’s mansion so Grover can heal him.

Annabeth devises a plan. Since both polecats and hellhounds are nocturnal, they are unlikely to wreak havoc during the day, leaving her time to research their human lives to find some useful information for tracking them down. She takes a day off from school to do that but insists Percy attend. At school, he runs into his old middle school teacher Mr. Brunner, who is also the immortal centaur Chiron (and the demigods’ camp counselor). Chiron suggests that Mrs. O’Leary may have done Percy a favor by finding the hellhound puppy, as the puppy might provide comfort and purpose to Hecuba, who lost all her children during her mortal life as the queen of Troy. He suggests the group look for her in a Greek neighborhood since she might go there hoping to avenge her family.

On Percy’s way home from school, Hecate checks in on him via portal (a supernatural means of traveling from location to location), and he carefully avoids either lying or revealing the truth. Back at the mansion, Annabeth shares what she learned about Hecuba, which echoes what Chiron told him. The group sets out to find her, starting in Astoria, a Greek enclave in the New York City borough of Queens. They follow the sound of screams and find Hecuba terrorizing a local Greek restaurant with zombie Trojan warriors, whom the restaurant patrons see as rats (mortals cannot typically see supernatural occurrences in the Percy Jackson series).

As Percy fights the soldiers, one of them touches him, plunging him into Hecuba’s memories, and he is heartbroken for her. Hecuba escapes, but the group again follows the sounds of screaming and finds her on the roof of a pastry shop. They go up to speak with her, and as Percy subtly ties her leash, Hecuba shadow travels the three of them to Troy. Percy shares his fears and hardships with her, telling her that the community he has created is what has gotten him through and that Hecuba also has a community that she can rely on. He convinces her to return to Hecate’s mansion in Gramercy, honoring her wish not to be leashed.

The next day, Annabeth must go to school for a presentation, so Percy and Grover strategize using Annabeth’s notes, which reveal that in ancient times Gale was an expert potion maker who got on Hecate’s bad side. Grover tries to help track her down by communing with all living creatures in Manhattan, but this exposes him to the risk of being absorbed by the natural world. Percy makes him promise never to do that again, reminding him that they are all responsible in one way or another for what happened. Using Grover’s information, they walk south, ending up in a perfume district. There, they meet naiads (freshwater nymphs) who had once been helpers of Circe (a goddess of magic introduced in The Sea of Monsters) and realize that the naiads have imprisoned Gale for her exceptional potion-making skills.

After a series of showdowns, they find Gale, but in the process, the naiad Phaedra uses a potion to transform them: Annabeth’s head becomes that of an owl, Percy’s hands turn into tentacles, and Grover’s legs become human. Phaedra gloats that their conditions are irreversible, but Percy guesses that Gale will know an antidote. Telling Grover and Annabeth to watch over the now tied-up naiads, he speaks with Gale, expressing empathy for what happened to her and promising to advocate for her to Hecate. In return, she instructs him on how to brew the antidote, which yields three servings. Percy offers the last one to Gale, but she insists he take it. If she were to transform back into a human, she would become mortal. In her polecat form, she can be eternal and continue her study of potions.

Back at Gramercy, the group considers how to fix Hecate’s mansion before she returns. They finally agree their only option is to use Hecate’s crossed torches, which she warned them should only be used in case of emergency. With the torches, they will be able to summon ghosts to oversee and carry out the repairs, but as Chiron warned Percy, it is dangerous. The ghosts could devour them if they lose control. With no other options, they use the torches, summoning 17th-century Dutch colonial administrator Peter Stuyvesant—a famous figure in New York’s history—and a cemetery full of ghosts.

The ghosts complete the renovations, but the torches prove too heavy for either Percy or Annabeth, and the ghosts begin attacking and causing chaos. Meanwhile, all the demigods arrive for the trio’s Halloween party, which they forgot to cancel. They help fight the ghosts, but their efforts are not enough. Only after Annabeth agrees to Percy’s help and they pool their strength to cross the torches are they able to send the ghosts back to the underworld. However, Peter Stuyvesant refuses to give up easily, insisting that the heretical souls of Percy and his friends must burn and that the house of his mother, Hecate, must be destroyed. After one of the demigods comes forward, empathizing with Stuyvesant but telling him the city belongs to everyone, Stuyvesant finally gives up.

The party goes on, but Annabeth isolates herself, feeling guilty for almost allowing the ghosts to overwhelm her. Percy comforts and reassures her that they will always be stronger as a team. The following day, Hecate returns and gives Percy his recommendation letter. He keeps his word to speak up for Gale and Hecuba. The book ends with Percy having dinner with his mother, stepfather, and friends, reflecting that they will remain his community no matter where he goes in the future.