Eight thrillers featuring fictional children with freaky powers

C. J. Tudor is the author of the newly released The Other People as well as The Hiding Place and The Chalk Man, which won the International Thriller Writers Award for Best First Novel and the Strand Magazine Award for Best Debut Novel. Over the years she has worked as a copywriter, television presenter, voice-over artist, and dog walker. She is now thrilled to be able to write full-time, and doesn’t miss chasing wet dogs through muddy fields all that much. She lives in England with her partner and daughter.

At CrimeReads, Tudor tagged eight thrillers featuring a child with a mysterious supernatural power, including:

The Passage by Justin Cronin

A sprawling apocalyptic epic about a world overrun by humans infected with a virus that gives then immortality, makes them hunger for blood and vulnerable to light. They are called ... Virals. Of course!

Amy Harper Bellafonte is a very special child who has been infected with a form of the virus and acquired some of the traits of the other infected such as immortality but not their bloodlust or their morphology.

The plot spans centuries and several stories—and the insistence on never mentioning the other ‘V’ word is a bit of a pretension – but at the heart of it is Amy and her unique abilities.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Passage is among Anthony Horowitz's top ten apocalypse books and Annalee Newitz's ten works of science fiction that are really fantasy.

--Marshal Zeringue