The Passage by Justin Cronin

June 8

Four years ago, Justin Cronin's 9-year-old daughter told him his books were "probably boring," and dared him to write a story about a girl who saves the world. Mr. Cronin, a literary novelist, took her up on it. The result: a postapocalyptic vampire trilogy, which Stephen King has hailed as a captivating epic.

Mr. Cronin, 47, says that he and his daughter, Iris, started mapping out the plot for fun. About two years later, in 2007, he had written 400 pages of the vampire epic, just half of the eventual book.

"The Passage" takes place in the aftermath of a viral outbreak that turned 40 million people into nocturnal, blood-sucking killers. An orphan girl proves immune to the virus's effects but can communicate with infected people. She becomes the last hope for humanity.

When his agent sent out an incomplete manuscript of "The Passage," he wasn't expecting a big response. A bidding war broke out, and Mr. Cronin sold the trilogy to Ballantine Books for more than $3 million. Fox 2000 and Ridley Scott's Scott Free Productions grabbed film rights before the first book in the series was even finished.