Press Reviews

• Stephen King

  Enthralling ... Read 15 pages, and you will find yourself captivated; read 30 and you will find yourself taken prisoner and reading late into the night. It had the vividness that only epic works of fantasy and imagination can achieve. What else can I say? This: read this book and the ordinary world disappears

• GUARDIAN

  Cronin's massive novel transcends its clichés and delivers a feverishly readable post-apocalyptic-cum-vampire chiller. It's not only a brilliantly told story, with thrilling plot twists and graphic action sequences, but a moving psychological portrait of survivors facing up to the poignant fact of a lost past and a horrifically uncertain future

• SUNDAY TIMES

  Enthralling ... richly imagined. Above all, Amy is a superb creation, believably human yet beguilingly enigmatic

• THE TIMES

  If you only take one book away with you this summer, make it The Passage. It's an absorbing, nightmarish dream of a book, a terrifying apocalyptic thriller, populated by believable, sympathetic characters. Once you start reading it, you won't want it to end

• DAILY MIRROR

  Epic, apocalyptic, heart-wrenching, catastrophic, mesmerisizing...

• SFX

  An exhilarating epic ... the breathtaking plot eventually circles back around, and the conclusion will leave you gasping. A modern classic in the making

• HEAT

  Dense stuff with intriguing characters, Cronin's story of a supernatural government experiment that gets out of hand is surprisingly gripping. Full of plot twists, action and vampires. It's a dark epic that matches the best of Stephen King

• STYLIST

  An epic thriller, the story hinges around Amy, a six-year-old girl used as a test case by the government for a covert mission involving a deadly virus. And yes, she manages to escape... We loved it

• OBSERVER

  Cronin is a skilled writer. Most of the characters are well drawn and he tackles the philosophical issue of gaining eternal life at the cost of your soul in between the throat-ripping battle scenes. I turned The Passage's pages feverishly to find out what happened next

• DAILY MAIL

  A gripping story and a richly drawn cast. This is an epic that often bears comparison with Stephen King

• SUNDAY EXPRESS

  Read 30 pages and you will find yourself taken prisoner and reading late into the night

• TIME

  Magnificent

• ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

  Magnificently unnerving . . . The Stand meets The Road

• USA TODAY

  Cronin has given us what could be the best book of the summer. Don't wait to dive into The Passage

• Jennifer Egan, author of A Visit from the Goon Squad

  Justin Cronin has written a wild, headlong, sweeping extravaganza of a novel. The Passage is the literary equivalent of a unicorn: a bona fide thriller that is sharply written, deeply humane, ablaze with big ideas, and absolutely impossible to put down

• MEN'S JOURNAL

  Addictive, terrifying, and deeply satisfying. Not only is this one of the year's best thrillers; it's one of the best of the past decade-maybe one of the best ever

• SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

  The stuff of reading frenzies

• SFX

  A modern classic in the making.

• THE JOURNAL

  As far as blockbuster novels go, this is up there with the most compelling.

• Maxim Jakubowski

  LOVEREADING.CO.UK

  A truly epic masterpiece that will have you hanging on for dear life

• GUARDIAN

  Cronin's massive novel transcends its clichés and delivers a feverishly readable post-apocalyptic-cum-vampire chiller. It's not only a brilliantly told story, with thrilling plot twists and graphic action sequences, but a moving psychological portrait of survivors facing up to the poignant fact of a lost past and a horrifically uncertain future.

• SUNDAY TIMES

  For most of this enthralling novel, it's not difficult to discern why the publisher is so excited. Cronin writes with verve and versatility, and is just as good in action scenes as he is in handling more literary material. His reinvention of vampires niftily ditches Transylvanian clichés and his future world is richly imagined. Above all, Amy is a superb creation, believably human yet beguilingly enigmatic.

• THE TIMES

  If you only take one book away with you this summer, make it THE PASSAGE. It's an absorbing, nightmarish dream of a book, a terrifying apocalyptic thriller, populated by believable, sympathetic characters. Once you start reading it, you won't want it to end.

• DAILY EXPRESS

  This epic tale is truly exhilarating stuff but what makes THE PASSAGE work so well is not its massive canvas, but the concentration on its human characters, notably six-year-old redhead Amy Harper Bellafonte.

• DAILY MIRROR

  Epic, apocalyptic, heart-wrenching, catastrophic, mesmerisizing...

• Stephen King

  Every so often a novel-reader's novel comes along: an enthralling, entertaining story wedded to simple, supple prose, both informed by tremendous imagination. Read 15 pages, and you will find yourself captivated; read 30 and you will find yourself taken prisoner and reading late into the night. It had the vividness that only epic works of fantasy and imagination can achieve. What else can I say? This: read this book and the ordinary world disappears.

• DAILY MAIL

  A gripping story and a richly drawn cast. This is an epic that often bears comparison with Stephen King.

• OBSERVER

  Cronin is a skilled writer. Most of the characters are well drawn and he tackles the philosophical issue of gaining eternal life at the cost of your soul in between the throat-ripping battle scenes. I turned THE PASSAGE's pages feverishly to find out what happened next.

• SUNDAY EXPRESS

  Read 30 pages and you will find yourself taken prisoner and reading late into the night.