Seven numbered novels make up the main Percy Jackson series, and there is only one sensible way through them, which is the order Rick Riordan published them. Five came out between 2005 and 2009, then Percy returned in 2023 for a senior-year trilogy that is still one book short of finished. The Percy Jackson books in order are right below, with the spin-off series placed after them.
The timing matters because Season 3 of Disney+’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians premieres November 20, 2026, and it adapts book three, The Titan’s Curse. Our Season 3 guide has the full episode schedule and the new cast.
Percy Jackson and the Olympians, in publication order
- The Lightning Thief (2005)
- The Sea of Monsters (2006)
- The Titan’s Curse (2007)
- The Battle of the Labyrinth (2008)
- The Last Olympian (2009)
- The Chalice of the Gods (September 26, 2023)
- Wrath of the Triple Goddess (September 24, 2024)
- Untitled third Senior Year book (no release date yet)
Why Publication Order Is the Only Order
Some long-running series reward jumping around. This one doesn’t. A prophecy tied to Percy’s 16th birthday hangs over the first five books, and it only unfolds in The Last Olympian. Read them out of sequence and you lose the slow build that makes that ending land.
The two newer books follow the same rule. The Chalice of the Gods and Wrath of the Triple Goddess are numbered six and seven on Riordan’s official site, so if you are reading the Percy Jackson books in order, they come right after The Last Olympian. The one wrinkle is where they sit in the wider timeline, which is covered in the spin-off section below.
How Many Percy Jackson Books Are There?
Seven, counting only the main series, with an eighth on the way. Riordan confirmed in a November 2024 update on his site that he will write a third and final Senior Year Adventure, and he told Entertainment Weekly in August 2025 that 2027 was probably the earliest it could arrive. No title or date has been announced
The Percy Jackson books in order above cover only Percy’s own series. Counting every novel set in his world pushes the number much higher. The Heroes of Olympus and The Trials of Apollo add five books each, and Nico and Will have two books of their own on top of that.
The Original Five Books (2005 to 2009)
The Lightning Thief (2005) introduces 12-year-old Percy, who learns he is a son of Poseidon just as Zeus accuses him of stealing his master bolt. He sets out across the country with Grover and Annabeth to recover it and to rescue his mother.
The Sea of Monsters (2006) opens with the tree that protects Camp Half-Blood poisoned and its magical borders failing. The cure is the Golden Fleece, and it sits beyond the Sea of Monsters.
The Titan’s Curse (2007) is the one Season 3 is built on. A rescue mission involving two new half-bloods goes wrong, Annabeth is taken, and Artemis vanishes while hunting an ancient monster, which sends Percy and the goddess’s Hunters off with roughly a week to find her.
The Battle of the Labyrinth (2008) moves the war into the Labyrinth, a sprawling maze beneath the earth, while Kronos’s army prepares to invade Camp Half-Blood. The Last Olympian (2009) ends the first run with Kronos advancing on Manhattan while the gods are away fighting the monster Typhon, which leaves Percy leading teenage demigods in the defense of Mount Olympus.
The Senior Year Adventures
Fourteen years after The Last Olympian, Percy came back for a smaller-scale trilogy. The setup in The Chalice of the Gods is pleasingly mundane by demigod standards. Percy wants to attend New Rome University, and to get in he needs three recommendation letters from the gods, which means three quests. The first has him tracking down a stolen chalice for Ganymede, Zeus’s cupbearer.
Wrath of the Triple Goddess is the second letter. Hecate asks Percy to pet-sit her animals over Halloween week, a potion turns Grover into a rampaging goat, the house gets wrecked and the pets escape. A stolen cup and a house-sitting gig are tiny stakes after five books of world-ending war, and that shrinkage is the whole appeal of the Senior Year run.
Where Heroes of Olympus and Trials of Apollo Fit
Neither spin-off is required reading before the Disney+ show, but both pick up Percy’s story. The Heroes of Olympus starts after The Last Olympian, and Percy is missing when book one opens and turns up in book two. The Trials of Apollo hands the lead to Apollo.
The Senior Year books are where the timeline gets interesting. Riordan places The Chalice of the Godsafter the Heroes of Olympus series and before The Trials of Apollo, so a reader who wants the whole saga in story order should save Percy’s senior year for after The Heroes of Olympus.
- Percy Jackson and the Olympians, books 1 to 5 (2005 to 2009)
- The Heroes of Olympus, from The Lost Hero (2010) through The Son of Neptune, The Mark of Athena and The House of Hades to The Blood of Olympus (2014)
- The Chalice of the Gods (2023) and Wrath of the Triple Goddess (2024)
- The Trials of Apollo, from The Hidden Oracle (2016) through The Dark Prophecy, The Burning Maze and The Tyrant’s Tomb to The Tower of Nero (2020)
Nico di Angelo and Will Solace have their own books after that, starting with The Sun and the Star (2023). The Court of the Dead, a Nico and Will story that Riordan’s site lists as written with Mark Oshiro, followed on September 23, 2025. The newest book with Camp Half-Blood in it is not a Percy book. The Wild Zone, out September 29, 2026, starts a new Camp Half-Blood series about a group of new campers, per Riordan’s site and Penguin Random House’s Brightly, which lists Annabelle Oh as co-author.
Which Book Each Disney+ Season Adapts
The show runs one book per season. Season 1 adapted The Lightning Thief and premiered in December 2023, with Walker Scobell as Percy. Season 2 adapted The Sea of Monsters and premiered with two episodes on December 10, 2025, according to Disney’s press release and ABC7. Ahead of that premiere, I previewed how the show was expanding the second book, including a character Riordan never wrote.
Season 3 adapts The Titan’s Curse, the first time that book has reached the screen, per Laughing Place and TV Insider. The two movies only covered the first two books. If the pattern holds, a fourth season would take on The Battle of the Labyrinth, but Disney had not renewed the show when Inverse updated its guide on August 20, 2026, and TV Insider also reports no official Season 4 renewal.
When Season 3 Premieres
Season 3 premieres Friday, November 20, 2026. Disney set the date at San Diego Comic-Con in July, as ABC7 and Popverse reported. The release plan came at New York Comic Con in October. Laughing Place and Fiction Horizon both report a two-episode premiere on Disney+ and Hulu, followed by two more episodes each week. The eight-episode season ends with a double finale on December 11
There is still time to read The Titan’s Curse before November 20. When the date was announced, I wrote that “book accurate” is a loaded promise for this one in particular, and having the Percy Jackson books in order fresh in your head is the best way to judge whether the show keeps it.
Update Log
- October 2026 Originally published with the publication order, story order, spin-off placement and the Season 3 premiere date, as of October 26, 2026.
