I did enjoy reading this book, despite the urge to sleep with the light on! It did have some flaws, but the author did a good job of setting up an interesting story. Although the ending was a bit predictable and disappointed me a little, I would recommend it to those who enjoy thrillers or horror stories. There was a lot of tension and breathless situations, but some parts of the book left me dissatisfied. I wish more time had been spent describing the various authors and their relationship with the "monster." Fleshing out that part of the story a bit would have made the present-day action even more meaningful. The Only Child was a good read.

The Only Child started out as improbably as to mock the tradition of true Gothic fiction. The tension and “horror” seemed contrived from the very start, placed into our minds by the forced narration of the author, not by circumstance, not by the skilled hand that every reader searches for to guide them on their path.

This novel was a dabbling adaptation of so many classic stories of the Gothic tradition—Frankenstein, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Dracula…my foot. To sample their tradition is one thing, to recreate it, another, more awe-inspiring thing. Yet this, The Only Child, was neither. It sampled their names, their ideas, but never breathed any life into them. In fact, it read as a lifeless shell of them, if that even, that writhed with too much telling me and not enough showing me. I felt nothing while reading this, not even when Pyper tried to tell me what to feel, and was bored from the start of the first chapter.

In short, The Only Child turned out to be a “fast-paced” adventure story with no soul, a play on the classic horror traditions we all love for their originality, though this novel displayed little originality of its own. I recommend it to no one, least of all lovers of classic horror or the Gothic tradition. In fact, the only surprise I found in these pages, before skipping to the end and finally putting it down, was that the renowned Simon and Schuster, whose lists I tend to love, would publish this thing in the first place. 1 star *

This book was very dark and strange. The main character, Lily Dominick, a forensic psychiatrist, begins to work with a client who has no name and claims to be immortal. When he claims to know her mother, who was murdered when Lily was a child, Lily's life is upended. As she goes on a quest for the truth behind the secrets in her life, what she uncovers will be life changing.

Chilling. Sick. Twisted. Brilliant.
"Have you ever considered that the thing you seek isn't an unnatural being, isn't your long lost father, but yourself?" Pyper is a masterful storyteller, weaving together a horror story that is both intriguing, compassionate, and not exactly so horrid. In finding her father, Lily is thrown into a labyrinth of events that leads her to her own truth and self.
Pyper's characters are multidimensional and fascinating, the plot is simply ingenious, grabbing you and abusing you until you don't want it to let you go. I'm breathless.

This is a story of discovering the truth of one’s existence and either accepting it or destroying it. A story of along lost love of family and what we would do to protect it. I enjoyed how the author created an intriguing mix of Frankenstein, Dracula, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in his story and added a modern day twist. It had me wanting to read more to find out what happened next.

3.5 stars

Ack!! The hardest review to write? One for a book that is well written but just not a genre you particularly enjoy reading. It’s simply a case of a slight mismatch between book & reader, for which I take full responsibility. So here’s the deal. I’ll tell you what I did like & why I think those with a taste for tales of horror with fantastical beasts should snap this up.

The MC is 36 year old Dr. Lily Dominick. Lily is a psychiatrist who works with the scariest, most diseased minds incarcerated at the maximum security Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Centre in NYC. She’s a private, insular woman whose experiences as a child pretty much sealed her fate in terms of career choice.

When Lily was 6, she & her mother were living in a remote cabin outside of Fairbanks when the unthinkable happened. It began with a knock at the door. Her memories of that night are hazy at best but what she does remember is the shadow of a large creature standing over her mother’s broken body. The resulting investigation ruled it a bear attack but Lily would beg to differ. Something carried her out to the nearest road where she was found. And even the most well mannered bear doesn’t usually knock before entering.

Lily has a gift for connecting with the “monsters’ in her care & she’ll need all her skills for the latest arrival. He’s a man with no name who claims to be over 200 years old. He seems to know all about her, something he explains with another bombshell. He’s her father.

Over the next 24 hours Lily witnesses events that cause her carefully constructed world to crash & burn. She doesn’t know it yet but it’s the end of normal & she soon sets off on a personal journey that takes her across Europe & back again.

In alternate chapters, we get her father’s story from his journal. He calls himself Michael & tells how he was created in 1811. He’s led a violent & fascinating life, showing his true self to a select few along the way. In an interesting twist he describes how meeting Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker & Robert Louis Stevenson resulted in disappointing versions of himself.

There are other threads to the plot including a shadowy group hunting Michael, a possible love interest for Lily & her gradual recovery of memories surrounding her mother’s death.

The first 25% of the book was a bit slow. We spend a lot of time in Lily’s head & are privy to her every thought, comment, action & memory. She comes across as oddly flat & although the reason for this is explained later, it makes it difficult to connect with her initially. I much preferred the historical chapters detailing Michael’s life. They’re richly atmospheric & really put flesh on the bones of this original character. For me the book got better as it progressed although the love interest angle seemed unnecessary as the whole story revolves around the relationship between Michael & Lily. But either way, it probably won’t prepare you for the ending. It’s a humdinger that leaves the door open for a possible sequel.

So just to be clear…..the rating reflects my enjoyment factor, not the author’s skills as a story teller. If you’re someone who enjoys horror with a twist of fantasy, I urge you to pick up this original tale derived from 3 classics of the genre.

This is definitely a book outside of my comfort zone as I don't typically read books tagged Horror. This was more creepy than scary though (it didn't keep me up at night) and I liked the way the stories of Frankenstein, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Dracula were woven it.

I just did not enjoy this book at all. I found myself doing more eye rolls than turning pages. Thank you for the opportunity to read it, though.

To call Andrew Pyper a horror writer does not do him justice as his well-crafted near-literary novels transcend that genre by a long shot. Don't get me wrong, there's lots of horror here, but in the mind, not in the gore.

Pyper plunges us into Lily's world and the growing awful realization of who she really is. The unfolding is precisely calibrated but for the reader it goes at a galloping pace. I dare you to put this novel down once you start reading it.

Wholly satisfying. More please.

Thank you Netgalley for the e-review edition of this book.

Full disclosure: I edited two of Andrew Pyper's previous novels (THE DEMONOLOGIST and THE DAMNED) so I was inclined to like his latest, but it exceeded even my high expectations. THE ONLY CHILD was a) the scariest of all his books, in my opinion, and b) the most lush and layered. The concept of an original "monster" who inspired three of the greatest works of Gothic horror was a high bar to set, but Pyper cleared it effortlessly, and I particularly loved Mary Shelley's cameo. For his fans, this is a can't-miss, and it should bring a whole new legion of readers to the table. Loved it!

(I'll be posting a lengthier review soon on my TinyLetter and will continue to tweet about it through publication.)

Oh, my gosh. This book had such high potential for me...but I hated it so much that I had to abandon it about 30% in.

At first, I thought the book was going to be really creepy and intriguing -- what with the protagonist's tragic past and her choice to evaluate the criminally insane as her lifetime career...THAT is the kind of realistic thriller I enjoy. When John Doe/Ivan/Michael came into the story, I was excited to see what kind of intensity he could bring to the book. His first meeting with Lilly was fine, despite his claim that he's over 200 years old (I really just chalked this up to the "insane" part). It was the second meeting -- in the apartment, where he basically turned
into a vampire -- where I thought my eyes were going to get stuck and be permanently rolled into the back of my head.

It's worth noting that I hate all things vampire and fantasy. It doesn't appeal to me even a little bit. I tried to press on for a few more pages after Michael killed the man by sucking the blood out of his neck, but I seriously could not get that out of my head (and not in a good way). I just think scenes like that are such cop-outs for authors -- like, really? You can't think of anything more plausible, so you have to chalk it up to a VAMPIRE? No, thanks.

I went back and re-read the summary of this book as advertised on NetGalley. It appears that I requested the book after just reading (okay, skimming) the first paragraph of the summary. Otherwise, I would've seen the "200 years old" nonsense a little farther down the page and most certainly would NOT have requested this book. So, to be fair, I didn't think the book was poorly written (I just hate the content), and I'm sure that other readers who enjoy this type of story would have much better things to say in their reviews.

A gripping mystery thriller that gave me chills and entertained me long into the night. Loved this book!

...she has learned how shaky the recollections of children can be. And she was only six when it happened. The age when certain things get stuck in the net of real memory, and other things you try to sell yourself on having happened but are in fact made up, turned into convincing bits of a dream.

Dr. Lily Dominick is about to encounter a man who has committed a disturbingly strange crime. Psychotics are her specialty, but there is something arousing and fascinating about this man. He claims to be 200 years old, a real monster that was used as inspiration for Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Bram Stoker. This is the part of the novel I loved, what a clever idea! With this, he must be mad! Crazier still, he claims he is her father! As the lone survivor in a brutal murder that took her mother's life, haunted by strange recollections of a creature coming to her rescue, she is haunted by the tangled mystery of what happened. Lily knows better than to fall into a patient's fantasy, but there is something different about this man, what if he knows what happened to her mother? The more she learns, his threatening presence becomes more real, or is she just losing her mind?

From the first few pages, I was expecting a different sort of novel. Then Pyper changed direction and Lily became someone else. Or maybe Lily's professional side is much like a coping mechanism, her way of keeping her world in order, trying to understand insanity by labeling it. But this nameless being is all the Gothic monsters combined and yet no one has been able to capture his true essence. Will Lily be able to understand him? What if he really is her father, what does that mean for her? He is blurring the lines used to diagnose the insane.

Not at all the twists I expected from the novel's beginning, which is usually a good thing. Admittedly, there were times I would rather see Michael's rotted evil soul in his actions, there should have been more incidents. But I think his 'creation' was fascinating, an original idea with a spit of history. It's funny, I would have loved a full story of Mary Shelley and Michael's short lived relationship, the things this author could do with that! In fact, that's what I loved most- Michael's history. Sometimes I felt Lily got in the way, and she is the main character! I thought I had her pegged as this level headed survivor and then she unravels and morphs into something strange and different herself. It works here, maybe there is a bit of her father in her after all? Or maybe it's a delusion she is falling under. You won't know until you read the story! It was good, the 'horror' didn't hit me between the eyes but I'm impressed with how Pyper worked classic authors into this strange tale. I was given an advanced copy, and my review is based on that. The novel won't be available until the summer but it's one to add to your reading list!

Publication Date: June 16, 2017

Simon & Schuster

Great read! Looking forward to reading more by this author!

I put this down after reading about 1/3 of it. It just seemed to jump the shark.

Having read Andrew Pyper's other novels I was super happy when i saw this offered on NetGalley. I was even more excited when I read the description . This novel grabbed me first page and did not let go. What if our greatest gothic novels, Dracula, Jekyll and Hyde and Frankenstein were all inspired by one being ? This is that story. Thrilling ,action packed and a truly gothic novel exceeded my expectations. I couldn't wait to finish but yet did not want it to end.

I think everyone should read this book,this book as the feel of being one of the great gothic stories of our generation,I was hooked from the first page until the last revelation,an epic read highly recommend this novel I would give it ten stars if I could absolutely brilliant