Vampires Gone Viral

Is there anything new to add to the vampire myth? Justin Cronin thinks so. There’s a deafening buzz about his new book The Passage, a story about a group of twelve felons and one six-year-old girl named Amy who are the failed result of a government experiment to create immortal supersoldiers.

These government guinea pigs have many nicknames—virals, flyers, slims, and smokes—and they escape their prison to hunt and infect the rest of the population. Fast forward ninety-three years and Amy, who has slowly aged into a teenager, reaches one of the last human settlements after the viral attack. At the compound the juice is running out on the 24-hour batteries, and the vampires are getting bolder.

Check out Trish Ping's interview with Justin Cronin at Bookpage.com. The idea for The Passage came about as Cronin's daughter rode her bike beside him on his daily jogs. His daughter wanted a story about a young girl who saves the world, and they created characters and bounced ideas off each other until Cronin thought there just might be a book there. Can a dad get any cooler than that?

Reserve a copy of The Passage.