The Passage cover art

The Passage

‘Will stand as one of the great achievements in American fantasy fiction’ Stephen King

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

The Passage

By: Justin Cronin
Narrated by: Scott Brick
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £16.99

Buy Now for £16.99

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

About this listen

 Amy Harper Bellafonte is six years old and her mother thinks she's the most important person in the whole world.

She is.

Anthony Carter doesn't think he could ever be in a worse place than Death Row.

He's wrong.

FBI agent Brad Wolgast thinks something beyond imagination is coming.

It is.

THE PASSAGE.

(p) 2010 Penguin Random House LLC©2010 Justin Cronin Fantasy Horror Science Fiction Supernatural Thriller & Suspense Fiction Scary Exciting

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Swan Song cover art
Stinger cover art
Fiction Land cover art
Atlas Shrugged cover art
Jurassic Park cover art
The Last Tribe cover art
The Long List Anthology cover art
The Road cover art
Elantris: Tenth Anniversary Author's Definitive Edition (1 of 2) (Dramatized Adaptation) cover art
The Stone Man - A Science Fiction Thriller, Book 1 cover art
Earthcore (2 of 3) (Dramatized Adaptation) cover art
Year One cover art
All the Names They Used for God cover art
The End is Nigh cover art
I Am Legend cover art
New Spring cover art

Critic reviews

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 (Stephen King)
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
Enthralling ... richly imagined. Above all, Amy is a superb creation, believably human yet beguilingly enigmatic
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
Epic, apocalyptic, heart-wrenching, catastrophic, mesmerisizing...
An exhilarating epic ... the breathtaking plot eventually circles back around, and the conclusion will leave you gasping. A modern classic in the making
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
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
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
A gripping story and a richly drawn cast. This is an epic that often bears comparison with Stephen King
Read 30 pages and you will find yourself taken prisoner and reading late into the night
Magnificent
Magnificently unnerving . . . The Stand meets The Road
Cronin has given us what could be the best book of the summer. Don't wait to dive into The Passage
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 (Jennifer Egan, author of A Visit from the Goon Squad)
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
All stars
Most relevant
Having been quite interested by the comments written by others and having avidly read Stephen King's 'The Stand' many years ago, the premise of this book looked quite interesting. I looked beyond the comments made about the change of characters referred to by other readers and decided to plunge in. I won't spoil the story by describing it to all, but suffice to say that characters in the first part DO return in the last part.

However, the author does spend a lot of time describing small actions by the characters and some events that occur in excruciating detail and length - to the extent that at times I was running the book on double speed to get past some of it. And at one point, we are treated to an extremely lengthy reading of what seems to be the New York Telephone Directory (in the last book). I thought at first that it was a joke - but no, name after name after name. It was almost as though the author was trying to sell the book to the publishers on word count!

And as for the end itself.....

This is a good book for those who suffer from insomnia - but in saying that, I did listen to it all the way through to the end! Be prepared for a long haul!

Almost Thomas Hardy-esque in its narrative

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is my perfect Audiobook, superb long story, very well narrated and produced, one of those that you really dont want to end. From the first 10 minutes I knew I was going to really get into this one and I did, could not get enough excuses to listen to this in my days and evenings. The best post apocolypse audiobook I have listened to since Oryx and Crake. 5 Star rating no question.

Everything I want in an Audiobook.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is a good book but it could have been a great book. Reminds me a little like "The Stand" by Stephen King. A journey of many parts centred around a virus. I nearly gave up after the first few hours but I stuck with it and I am glad I did. The first part started off really well and at a decent pace. The second part was a little fragmented and the character development was lacking and lead me to be a little confused about the massive jump the story made. Apart from that its a good read and it recovers well. I have got my moneys worth from this title. But it maybe useful to know that this is the first part of a trilogy but I will be reading the second part with my next set of credits with great anticipation.

Hold on! Stay with it guys!....it gets better!!!!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I really enjoyed listening to The Passage, and yes you should believe the hype. I'm not the biggest fan of this kind of literature, I think the vampire theme in a lot of novels is wearing a little thin, however what saves this book is the awesome writing. Although this is Justin Cronin's first bestseller, from what I have read he has been a writer for some time and this really shows in this novel. The character's are really interesting and his descriptions of their surroundings are well carved out which really does make it a page turner. His writing actually reminds me a lot of Stephen King. In all my reviews I feel it important to mention the narrator as I think this can make or break an audiobook- the narrators in The Passage are excellent, it is a long book and the main narrator doesn't lose pace once, he also has a really great tone to his voice, hard to describe but perfect for this kind of novel.
Certainly worth a listen if you appreciate good writing, good narration and a good old fashioned zombie theme!

This is not buffy

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I came across this book entirely by accident, and had not read any of the reviews before I purchased, simply wanting an audiobook that seemed 'different'. My pleasure upon listening to the excellent narration, and the incredibly detailed plot and character development cannot really be put across here. What I will say (as an attempt to convey my regard for Cronin's work) is that this is the ONLY audiobook that I have stopped listening to because it was too good. Sounds strange but I just couldn't bring myself to listen to it all, I had to go out and purchase the hardback, to see it in it's original fomat. I've read the book twice in three months, and am currently listening to the audio.

From the scientific expedition that is a violent and horrific disaster, the secret weaponisation of human capabilities, a story about a single mother and a nun, internal politics of a small colony, to dangerous expeditions into a world destroyed by an unnamed horror in the dreams of the many, this book is an epic triumph.

If you are looking for a book that isn't over in a few days, and will grip you from beginning to end, I entirely recommend 'The Passage' to you

Gripping, just brilliant

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews