This book was just not my style. I love classic horror stories but this one didn’t really resonate in that tone like it intended. It felt like a try hard and forced.

What if Frankenstein's Monster, Mr.Hyde, and Dracula were all inspired by one man? Dr. Lily Dominick finds herself interviewing a patient who claims that he is two hundred years old and that he met the authors of all three great horror classics, leading them to create their characters. There were parts of the book that held my interest, like his meeting with Mary Shelley, but I found myself slogging through the present day scenes.

I don't read a lot of horror, but this book was really interesting! I was worried it would be too scary, but it definitely wasn't. I'll be looking out for more books from this author.

"The #1 internationally bestselling author of The Demonologist radically reimagines the origins of gothic literature’s founding masterpieces—Frankenstein, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Dracula—in a contemporary novel driven by relentless suspense and surprising emotion. This is the story of a man who may be the world’s one real-life monster, and the only woman who has a chance of finding him.

As a forensic psychiatrist at New York’s leading institution of its kind, Dr. Lily Dominick has evaluated the mental states of some of the country’s most dangerous psychotics. But the strangely compelling client she interviewed today—a man with no name, accused of the most twisted crime—struck her as somehow different from the others, despite the two impossible claims he made.

First, that he is more than two hundred years old and personally inspired Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Bram Stoker in creating the three novels of the nineteenth century that define the monstrous in the modern imagination. Second, that he’s Lily’s father. To discover the truth—behind her client, her mother’s death, herself—Dr. Dominick must embark on a journey that will threaten her career, her sanity, and ultimately her life.

Fusing the page-turning tension of a first-rate thriller with a provocative take on where thrillers come from, The Only Child will keep you up until its last unforgettable revelation."

For some reason I really like reimaginings of Dr. Jekyll... like A LOT.

Dr. Lily Dominick, a forensic psychiatrist in New York, winds up interviewing a patient who claims to be her father Michael. Michael has been arrested as a dangerous psychotic but he believes that he is over 200 years old and inspired Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson and Bram Stoker in their creation of monsters. This premise sounded interesting, but I very quickly started skimming this book because I didn't like Lily. As I progressed, I found a lot of other things that I didn't like about this book.

Michael's backstory was kind of interesting but it was inadequately explained and left me with more questions than it answered. As he lured Lily from place to place in an attempt to verify his story, I kept wondering why all of that was necessary. There had to be a more direct way of conveying his story. I might have liked the book more without Lily. There are some mystery men skulking about chasing Lily and/or Michael, for reasons that change from chapter to chapter. There is also no consistency to Michael's motives.

I had a major problem with Lily's sexual attraction to Michael, but then Lily lusts after pretty much everyone. If you enjoy reading the following sentences you might like this book more than I did: "She wants to touch this man not to make her fear go away but to enflame it, focus it, invest it with an even more desperate urgency. There are things she wants to do to him. And the notion of doing them now, precisely when she shouldn't want to do them, only sharpens her yearning." Personally, this made me feel a little ill. I could go on, but the bottom line is that I didn't care for this book.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

This horror story, featuring Lily, a psychiatrist was quite intriguing and grabs the reader from the start. I'm not totally a fan of horror, despite reading Stephen King and Dean R Koontz as a child, but this was well done and I can't wait for the next book! Recommended.

Oh how I needed a book like this in my life! It was all a good horror tale should be and more. The Only Child was so delightfully morbid and twisted, blurring the lines so easily between good an evil. The way it brought a new shine to those Gothic tales of old made for such an eerie experience.

Opening up, Lily seemed as if she was going to be a very tough character to follow for so many pages. Personality? What personality. She seemed almost mechanical, just going through the motions. Yet as she desperately searches for answers, spiraling desperately close to madness herself, she becomes someone difficult to leave behind.

I honestly read this all in one late night sitting. The way the past is oh so slowly revealed. Tantalizing the reader with only snippets at a time, a few clues here, a whispered tale there. It was a magical journey, if a horrifying one.

I love the kind of books that blur the line between good and evil, good guys and bad. Doesn't everyone have their own agenda? Can they really help what circumstance has forced them to become? What about those who are afforded the choice and choice unwisely?

So many questions in this mile a minute thriller, and so few of them really get answered because of their rhetorical -make you think- fashion.

Definitely one I'd recommend to like minded readers.

Great idea and so atmospheric. I'm a huge fan of Andrew Pyper and his work.

I don’t even know where to begin on The Only Child by Andrew Pyper, such an interesting and complex novel. The main character of the story is Dr. Lily Dominick. Lily works at a mental institution where it is her job to diagnosis criminals. These aren’t just normal criminals these are very dangerous psychotics.

One of Lily’s patients turns out to be very interesting. He claims that he is over 200 years old and that he is Lily’s father. Lily is fine with him saying these things, it makes her diagnosis so much easier. However, when he escapes, she finds herself drawn to him and struggles to find answers to the claims that he makes.

We learn that when Lily was 6, her mother was killed by a bear and Lily was found walking along a road. We continue to learn more about Lily and her mother and why her mother had them live in an isolated cabin.

We learn more about Michael as he reveals how Mary Shelley, Bram Stroker, and Robert Louis Stevenson all play a part in his life.

Part gothic, part horror, part love story. I couldn’t put it down.

I received an ARC of the book.

The book was nothing like I expected at all, and while it presented a little bit of several genres, it is hard to categorize it properly, but I like to have my books neatly ordered so I'll give it a shot and label this one a dramatic gothic horror thriller tragedy.

The first half is definitely the better part of the book, as the reader, together with Lily, still tries to figure out what of the stories Michael tells is true. Is he really a man-made creature rather than a human with a disturbed mind? Is he really over two hundred years old or does he just believe so? With each chapter, Lily comes closer to revealing the true history of the man who claims to be her father. But what does that make of Lily? While the focus is mostly on Michael, it is interesting to follow the changes Lily goes through, and the doubts she start raising about her own history - and possible future.

While the author cleverly weaves three of the most popular classic gothic novels and their surprising origin into the story, he fails to convincingly convey its historical impact. While it read as a fascinating 'anecdote' from Michaels past, it did little more than entertain for a short moment, rather than turn knowledge about the creation of gothic horror upside down with a stunning revelation. I wonder if it would not have been better to focus on the one masterpiece with the most obvious connection to Michael's story instead of 'collecting' the mention of two other classics as well.

As the second half of the book slows down considerably, the ending at least made up for it and brought a fitting, though not totally surprising, conclusion.

The book is like a potpourri of genres that evokes equally mixed feelings. While I appreciate the attempt to create something highly impressive, it is a mere shadow of the masterpieces it so boldly utilizes.

(Thanks to Netgalley, the author, and the publisher for a copy of the book, all opinions are my own)

Published by Simon & Schuster on May 23, 2017

The Only Child is a horror novel, but it’s not the horror novel I expected. Is it a vampire novel? Not really, because the vampire genre has devolved into a branch of romance fiction thanks to Twilight and its trashy imposters. There’s only a bit of romantic blood lust in The Only Child, although the protagonist, a fellow named Michael, once wooed Mary Shelley.

Michael is a monster, a blend of Dracula and Frankenstein and Mr. Hyde, who has a taste for blood and nineteenth century horror writers. Give Andrew Pyper credit for drawing on the classics for inspiration.

Michael says he was created to be the prototype of a perfect soldier. Those plans never turn out quite as the mad scientist expects. But whether Michael is telling the truth about his origins is not entirely clear.

What is clear, perhaps, is that Lily Dominick is his daughter. And that Lily’s mother was torn apart by a bear when Lily was six. Except it might not have been a bear. And while Lily’s memories of that day might not be entirely reliable (did she really ride away from the crime scene on a white horse?), it doesn’t take much to convince her that she is a monster’s daughter.

Lily is now a forensic psychiatrist who assesses the mental health of individuals who, more often than not, have committed horrible crimes. The story begins with a man who tore the ears off a stranger so that he would be evaluated by Lily. At least, that’s what he tells her. The man is Michael, who claims to be over two hundred years old.

Michael manipulates Lily in ways that lead her to Eastern Europe and a variety of threatening encounters. Lily wants to learn the truth about the man, about her mother, and perhaps about herself, but separating truth from deception is difficult. The eventual question for Lily is whether she should make an alliance with Michael or with the people who are trying to kill him. It’s a tough question.

Pyper is an excellent storyteller and The Only Child is a truly creepy work of fiction. The plot moves in unexpected directions and the characters are so enigmatic that it’s impossible to decide who to like or dislike until the very end. In fact, the ending redefines the reader’s view of key characters. The Only Child is a well-crafted, surprising novel that plays with the traditions of horror fiction and manages to add something new.

RECOMMENDED

In his newest novel, Canadian author Andrew Pyper reimagines the origins of gothic literature – from the perspective of the same monster that inspired the novels of Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker and Robert Louis Stevenson. He brings the terror and darkness of Frankenstein, Dracula and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde into a contemporary setting that highlights the fear these characters have inspired for decades.

Dr. Lily Dominick is a forensic psychiatrist who deals with New York’s most dangerous mental patients. She arrives at work one day to find that she has an attractive, compelling new client who has been accused of a shocking violent crime – but even more shocking are the outrageous claims he makes about himself. The first is that he is over 200 years old and was the inspiration for the masters of gothic literature. His second claim is that he is Lily’s father.

The man, who tells Lily that she can call him Michael, appears to be the same age as Lily, so she at first dismisses both claims. However, he has surprising information about the death of Lily’s mother – in fact, he admits that he was present at her death when Lily was a child. Before she can process her feelings about Michael’s claims, she learns that he has made a violent escape from custody. He quickly tracks Lily down and draws her into his terrifying world, framing her for a horrible crime.

A pursuit around the globe follows, as Lily attempts to clear her name and learn more from Michael. While she is drawn to him, she also fears him, and her emotions are conflicting – she feels a paternal attachment, wondering if he truly is her father, but she also feels sexual attraction to this enigmatic man. Her desire and her fear are mixed together in a way that is often difficult to read about – at times it is just icky.

Lily’s journey causes her to question her own sanity, and in the process, she comes close to losing everything – her friends, her career and even her life. Her humanity is the backbone of the novel – she is strong, intelligent and independent, but also emotional and sexual. The Only Child is a tense thriller, but it is also metafictional in that it questions the entire origin story of the horror genre. However, the story begins to follow too many different threads, instead of focusing on the monster that holds it all together. The clues Lily follows are often too convenient to be believed.

Michael is a fascinating gothic monster, especially in the excerpts from his journals, in which he interacts with the authors Shelley, Stevenson and Stoker. The horror elements are powerful, but they are eclipsed in the end by the clichéd thriller ending – which really comprises the final third of the novel, where things took an odd and unnecessary turn. In the end, while there were parts that I really enjoyed, the story was dragged down by too many different themes, plot twists and innuendos.

I received this book from Simon & Schuster and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Only Child suffers from trying to be too much at the same time. Its mix of Gothic, horror, psychological thriller, murder mystery, and hint of coming-of-age story does not blend well together; at times, they even fight for dominance. While it is an outstanding premise, this is one novel in which the execution does the story an injustice.

One of the main issues with The Only Child is the characters. Lily starts out being very strongly developed. Independent, aloof, highly intelligent, and emotionally tough, she confronts sociopaths on a daily basis without batting an eye. Her calm demeanor and her ability to remain unruffled in spite of talking with some of the sickest minds in the country are admirable, and one wishes for more insight into how she is able to maintain such control under such trying circumstances. Unfortunately, after she meets her mysterious client who claims to be her father, all of those attributes which made her so fascinating disappear. Lily rapidly devolves into an emotional wreck, almost incapable of making decisions for herself. While still intelligent, she loses her common sense and ventures into situations which make no sense for her character. Even though she had no problems remaining independent and isolated for her adult life, suddenly she is unable to be alone and laments her lack of parents. While meant to highlight her lack of control over her client, her devolution nonetheless is irksome because it did not have to be so complete and so rapid.

Michael is also a flawed character in that the development of his character is weak. Claiming to be the origins behind Frankenstein, Mr. Hyde, and Dracula provides him with an interesting backstory, albeit slightly fuzzy on the details department. His personal origins in particular are superficial, warranting more of a comment than a full description. Once he meets Lily in person though and he stops providing clues about his past, he too devolves. As with Lily, the rapidity of this weakens the story because it becomes a crucial plot point later in the novel. The reasons given for his transformation into the monster do not make sense. Moreover, they erase any development his character exhibited to that point. One leaves the story wishing Michael's character had been treated differently.

The rest of the story is a blur of cat and mouse chases. Sometimes this occurs between Michael and Lily or vice versa. Sometimes, there is an additional threat of a mysterious government agency and/or bounty hunters who will stop at nothing to take Michael. As with Lily and Michael, the addition of these shadowy militant figures comes with little in the way of explanation and seem to provide the story with nothing more than a third party to confuse Lily regarding who she should trust.

The ending is the biggest disappointment of the novel with its last stand mentality. Coming after a very sudden shift in loyalties, it too is rushed with a final scene that makes one think Mr. Pyper left room for sequels. After an entire novel in which much of the violence occurs offstage, readers now get the full gore treatment. The propensity for violence was always an undercurrent of the story, which added a nice layer of suspense. The abrupt shift to shown violence is not necessarily a surprise, but one cannot help but feel it would have been a stronger story had the violence remained offstage.

With its mention of the top three original monsters in literature, it feels like The Only Child should have been a much better story. Unfortunately, the two main characters never really evoke sympathy. In fact, Lily becomes downright childish at times as she becomes unable to access the professional demeanor and intelligence that made her so compelling a figure in the beginning. Similarly, Michael's mercurial shift from man to monster to man seems arbitrary, established merely as a convenient plot point rather than remaining true to his character. By the time one gets to the additional men also out to get Lily and/or Michael, the story devolves into a free-for-all that throws logic to the wind. If Mr. Pyper had picked just one type of story to write, The Only Child would have been much stronger. Instead, it becomes an example of how playing with multiple genres might not be the best approach for a story.

THE ONLY CHILD by Andrew Pyper is a perfect title for clearly an awesome beginning to a great read. This story kept me on my toes as the excitement kept building, and I anxiously waited to see what was going to happen next. So realistic!

I don't usually read horror stories, but the description of this book intrigued me and once I started reading it, I could. Not. Put. It. Down!!!

It's quite a testimony to the author that I was able to completely suspend disbelief and no matter how outrageous, I totally bought into it. I was holding my breath to the very end!!

This book is creepy good!!!

Andrew Pyper mixes up a cocktail of horror story, supernatural thriller, and psychological drama infused with a bit of good old Gothic romance in this collision of Frankenstein meets Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with a dash of Dracula and a soupcon of iZombie thrown in for good measure.

THE ONLY CHILD takes us into the life of Dr. Lily Dominik, 30 year old loner and forensic psychiatrist (read profiler) whose job at a New York maximum security Psychiatric Hospital brings her in contact with every sort of diseased mind imaginable. Her own history is filled with horrible memories concerning the death of her mother and her latest patient, Michael, is a charismatic man who insists that he is immortal and provided inspiration for the likes of Stoker, Shelley and Robert Louis Stevenson. He also states that he knows the truth about her mother’s death and is, in fact, the father she has never known.

Michael escapes the hospital and the requisite scenes of murder and mayhem ensues (did I mention that Michael has a set of custom metal teeth that he whips out whenever he needs to perform some “dirty work”? ) and Lily is implicated. This takes both she and the reader on a whirlwind journey from New York to the European cities where Michaels story began and ultimately to the cabin in the Alaskan wilderness where Lily’s own strange saga commenced.

Even with all of the theatrical and over the top aspects of the tale, THE ONLY CHILD is an enjoyable roller coaster ride.

3.5 of 5 stars

Last year I had the distinct pleasure of reading The Damned, a chilling psychological horror that immediately landed Andrew Pyper on my must-read authors list. It was thus with great excitement that I approached his newest novel The Only Child, which sounded like it would be a very different experience—which just made me even more curious.

When the story opens, we get to meet protagonist Dr. Lily Dominick, a doctor at the Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center whose job involves working with some of the country’s most dangerous and disturbed criminals. Lily, however, is battling a darkness of her own. Growing up, she has always been aloof, keeping others at a distance so that few people know about the traumatic experiences in her childhood and the details surrounding her mother’s violent death. But the past has come back to haunt her now, in the form of a new client at the clinic—a man whose only identity is a patient intake number and a police report detailing his horrific crimes. In spite of herself, Lily is drawn to the stranger, even before he tells her that they have actually met before, a long time ago before she was old enough to remember. He also claims he knew her mother…and the truth behind how she died.

At first, Lily is dismissive of the client’s statements. After all, he did not look old enough for any of his wild claims to be true. But then Michael, the name the man has chosen to call himself, has an explanation for this too, declaring that he is more than two hundred years old and was in fact the inspiration for many of the monsters in classic literature. At this point, Lily is almost sure the clinic’s newest patient is just another deranged psychopath suffering from delusions of grandeur, only there are few things about her he couldn’t have known—unless he is telling the truth, of course, which should be an impossibility. Unfortunately for Lily though, she doesn’t realize Michael is the real deal until it is too late. To free herself from this real-life monster, she will need to embark on a dangerous journey over oceans and across continents to unlock the secrets of her past.

Lately, I have been reading a lot of books that make references to or are inspired by the classics. I have to say, little did I expect to find this as well in The Only Child though. In a way, it was a pleasant surprise, as who doesn’t love a little Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? Pyper managed to incorporate three of the greatest gothic horror novels of the 1800s into this strange tale, and he did it in an interesting and clever way.

On the flip side of this, however, there are the lengthy sections in the middle of the book detailing how Michael inspired these classic works, told mainly via flashback chapters in the form of letters to Lily. While the ideas were generally good, I was not as pleased with their execution. At best, they were a distraction from the main mystery plot, and at worst, it sometimes felt like I was reading an entirely different book. Rather than blending seamlessly with the rest of the story, the “classic monsters” angle felt like it was tacked on like an afterthought—almost gimmicky, in a way. That said, I enjoyed the added literary atmosphere immensely, which elevated this novel beyond your usual suspense-thriller. Other than that, though? The references to Shelley, Stoker, Stevenson and their works admittedly made very little impact on the story, which was kind of a shame.

Still, I don’t want to give anyone the impression that I didn’t enjoy this book, because I did. While it was not quite as mind-blowing as The Damned, the plot was addictive all the same, and I blew through the entire novel in about two sittings, a reliable sign that this was a enthralling read. At times the story seems confused as to what it wants to be (a portentously gloomy horror? Or a modern supernatural thriller?) but to its credit at no time does the pacing let up. The clues and developments come at you fast, punctuated by brief glimpses into Michael’s riveting history. While some of the plot points feel patently over the top, the possibility has crossed my mind that this is merely another one of Pyper’s nod to the classics, which would be a very clever touch if that’s the case. The characters were also genuinely compelling, if somewhat flawed, especially Michael whose presence is at once eerie and fascinating.

Overall, I thought The Only Child was a good read, if a little overambitious, resulting in a story that is not as focused as I would have liked. Still, for fans of the gothic horror tradition, it may be well worth it to take a look. I also felt this novel was an interesting direction for Pyper, one that I felt was bold and different, making me excited to read more of his future work.

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"A dragon may be wondrous to behold, but that same wonder demands it be slain."
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This was a great idea that suffered in the execution...

The concept - that there is one "man" who is responsible for the myths underpinning the gothic horror canon (Frankenstein, Jekyll and Hyde, Dracula) - is a cool (if not necessarily utterly original) one. The addition of the forensic psychologist, Lily Dominick, who meets him with the intention of treatment but soon realizes there's more to him than meets the eye - and whose life rapidly faces radically life-altering consequences as a result - offered opportunities for analysis and clever insights. The addition of the journal, as the means for relaying backstory was a very interesting, somewhat meta-, way to give the relevant details (sort of literature within literature). And if the story had stuck to those elements, it would probably have been excellent rather than merely interesting. Unfortunately, Pyper somehow felt compelled to add in other, extraneous, competing elements (and genres)... The result was a hodgepodge that never really came into its own as I hoped it would.

This is a gothic contemporary psychological thriller horror story full of hunters and victims and chases and history and mental health and personal growth and... Simply put, it tries to be too many things down too many paths, and thereby loses its way altogether.

Pyper is a great storyteller. I've read his work several times before and always enjoyed it. He tells ambitious, creepy tales - and he tells them well. Unfortunately, this time he tried to expand beyond the ambitious into the stratospheric... Perhaps he could have kept all of those balls in the air, but the book would have had to be at least twice as long. As it is, the beginning third of the book is excellent, with great pacing and suspense-building, and then the scope suddenly starts expanding - and the characters start shrinking. Both Lily and Michael started out as complex, sophisticated characters, but gradually devolved into stereotypes - and not the ones I expected (or would have wanted). The strong, independent, emotionally closed-off doctor becomes a basket case of a victim; her part in the finale is utterly unbelievable as a result. And Michael, whose rationales are initially teased out through the brilliant journal backstory bits, becomes a straight-up monster - until suddenly, through hindsight and inner monologues at the very end, maybe he wasn't.

As a whole, it just felt like a meandering jumble of things - which was a true shame, because it started off so strongly...

Andrew Pyper has outdone himself with this latest release. A fantastic and captivating tale of the man/ creature who inspired the three most well-known monsters of the literary field. What a great concept for a story, and what a great story it is!
I couldn't put it down once I started reading. The first two chapters of The Only Child grab you and immediately sink their teeth in you and propel you all the way to the end like a locomotive! My favorite by this wonderful author by far!

Lately I've been picking books that have a strong beginning but starts to limp along after a while. Enjoyed the parts that directly involved Michael, the rest not so much. Lily turns into super woman after being Miss calm, cool and collected. Glad that's over with.