7 Books Like Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

Rick Riordan wrote The Red Pyramid specifically for readers who finished Percy Jackson and wanted the same experience with different gods. Carter and Sadie Kane are siblings separated after their mother's death. Carter travels the world with their Egyptologist father. Sadie lives with grandparents in London. When their father accidentally releases the chaos god Set, both kids discover they are descended from pharaohs and have to learn Egyptian magic fast. Riordan brings the same irreverent first-person narration he used with Percy, but splits it between two voices.

Carter and Sadie alternate chapters, and they disagree about everything, including each other's versions of events. That sibling bickering adds a comedic layer Percy Jackson's solo narration could not provide. The mythology feels just as deeply researched. Riordan clearly spent as much time in Egyptian source texts as he did in Greek ones. The action sequences follow the same pattern: kids outmatched by ancient powers, surviving on quick thinking rather than raw strength. If your reader loved Percy's voice and wants the same tone applied to a different mythological system, The Red Pyramid is the most direct handoff available.

Shannon Messenger's Keeper of the Lost Cities scratches the Percy Jackson itch for readers who want a longer, more detailed series with a female protagonist. Sophie Foster discovers at age twelve that she is not human. She is an elf who was planted in the human world as a baby, and her real home is a hidden civilization with telepathy, light-leaping teleportation, and a government that runs on secrecy. The hidden world structure mirrors Camp Half-Blood directly. Both series put a misfit kid into a school for special beings where they have to learn abilities nobody prepared them for.

Messenger writes at a slightly older reading level than early Percy Jackson, with more complex political intrigue and emotional depth as the series progresses. The first book sets up mysteries that pay off five and six books later. There are nine books and counting, which means readers who tear through the Percy Jackson series in a week have months of material ahead of them. The tone is less jokey than Riordan's but maintains the same warmth toward its protagonist. Readers who loved Percy for being an underdog in a world of powerful beings will find Sophie facing the same dynamic.

Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl is the anti-Percy Jackson, and that is exactly why it works as a follow-up. Where Percy is a well-meaning kid thrown into adventure, Artemis Fowl II is a twelve-year-old criminal genius who deliberately provokes the fairy world because he wants their gold. He is the villain of his own story, at least in the first book. Colfer writes with the same rapid-fire humor as Riordan but aims it differently. The jokes come from Artemis being absurdly competent and emotionally stunted. The fairies are not the cute kind.

They run a high-tech underground civilization with their own military, and Captain Holly Short is a better action hero than most adult protagonists. The mythology draws from Irish fairy lore rather than Greek myths, but the fundamental setup is the same: a hidden world exists beneath our own, and a kid has stumbled into it. Colfer's prose moves at the same velocity as Riordan's. Short chapters, constant momentum, cliffhangers that make it impossible to stop reading. Readers who loved Percy Jackson's pace and humor but want a morally complicated protagonist will find Artemis an addictive change of pace.

Brandon Mull's Fablehaven does for fairy-tale creatures what Percy Jackson does for Greek gods. Siblings Kendra and Seth Sorenson spend a summer at their grandparents' estate and discover it is a secret preserve for mythical creatures. Fairies, satyrs, trolls, witches, and demons all live within protected boundaries. When those boundaries start breaking down, the kids are the only ones who can fix it. The sibling dynamic between cautious Kendra and reckless Seth provides the same kind of character contrast that Percy and Annabeth create. Mull builds his magical ecosystem with real care, establishing rules about how the preserve works and then letting the kids figure out how to bend them.

The tone sits between Riordan's breezy humor and something slightly creepier. Fablehaven gets genuinely scary in places, with dark creatures that carry real menace. The series runs five books, each raising the stakes and expanding the mythology. Mull writes action sequences with the same clarity as Riordan. You always know where everyone is and what is at stake. For readers who want the hidden magical world formula with more horror elements and less classroom mythology, this is the pick.

Jonathan Stroud's The Amulet of Samarkand is my wild card pick for Percy Jackson readers who are ready for something darker and more sophisticated. Nathaniel is a twelve-year-old magician's apprentice in an alternate London where magicians run the government and djinn do the heavy lifting. He summons the five-thousand-year-old djinni Bartimaeus to steal an amulet from a powerful magician who humiliated him. Bartimaeus narrates his own chapters in footnote-laden first person, cracking jokes about the thousands of years he has spent dealing with incompetent human masters. That sarcastic supernatural narrator is not far from Percy's voice, but pitched older and sharper.

Stroud builds his alternate world with more political complexity than Riordan. The magicians are a ruling class, and ordinary people live under their control. Nathaniel starts out sympathetic and becomes increasingly morally ambiguous across the trilogy. The humor is constant but tinged with darkness. If a Percy Jackson reader has outgrown the middle-grade tone but still wants fantasy with mythology, sarcastic narration, and a kid punching above his weight class, this trilogy is the bridge.

Rick Riordan's Daughter of the Deep is a standalone that shows what happens when he applies the Percy Jackson formula to science fiction instead of mythology. Ana Dakkar attends Harding-Pencroft Academy, an elite marine science school that has been secretly guarding Captain Nemo's submarine technology for generations. When a rival school destroys their campus, Ana and her classmates take to the sea in Nemo's legacy sub to survive. The pacing is pure Riordan. Short chapters, cliffhanger endings, a protagonist who narrates with the same mix of self-deprecation and determination that makes Percy work. The difference is the source material. Instead of Greek myths, Riordan is riffing on Jules Verne.

The result feels like Percy Jackson goes underwater. Ana has the same underdog quality as Percy. She does not understand her own abilities at the start and has to learn them under pressure. The ensemble cast of academy students fills the role that Camp Half-Blood campers fill in the original series. It runs shorter than a Percy Jackson novel and works as a complete story. For readers who want Riordan's voice applied to something other than mythology, this is the clearest option.

J.C. Cervantes wrote The Storm Runner as part of Rick Riordan Presents, an imprint Riordan created to amplify authors bringing non-Greek mythologies to the Percy Jackson audience. Zane Obispo is a thirteen-year-old with a shortened leg who lives near a dormant volcano in New Mexico. He discovers the volcano is a prison for an ancient Maya god, and he has a blood connection to the god of storms. Cervantes writes with the same first-person humor as Riordan but brings Maya mythology to a middle-grade audience that has likely never encountered it.

Zane's physical disability is central to his character without ever becoming his only trait. The action sequences follow Riordan's template: a kid outmatched by divine power, surviving through cleverness and loyalty rather than strength. Cervantes weaves Maya cosmology into the story with the same seamless integration Riordan uses for Greek myths. Gods, heroes, and magical creatures all have roots in real Maya tradition. For readers who loved Percy Jackson's connection to his mythological heritage and want to see that same structure built on Maya culture, The Storm Runner opens a door to a mythology most American readers have never encountered.