Book Review: The Only Child by Andrew Pyper

Disclosure / Disclaimer: I received this ebook free of charge,from  Simon & Schuster. via Netgalley  for review purposes on this blog. No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about it, and all opinions are my own.



It might seem odd to have this book review on History day, but the book deals with the idea of how the classic thriller books Franekstein, Dracula, and Strange Case of Jekyll and Mr Hyde, came about, so it seems right to have it on today!

the only child cover

Synopsis:

The #1 internationally bestselling author of The Demonologist radically reimagines the origins of gothic literature’s founding masterpieces—FrankensteinStrange 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 jo
urney 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.


Review:

Wow is the best word I have for this book! I grew up reading the classic thrillers, and Stephen King books. Pyper is definitely the heir apparent to those great authors in this genre! I literally could NOT put this book down, and stayed up way late into the morning, finishing it. And then the final chapter left me wondering and anticipating if there will be a book 2 in the series, or if Pyper will follow suit and let the reader's imagination finish the story. The characters jump off the page at you, and as bas as Lily's history is, she is also very likable and you may find yourself totally immersed in her character. As she searches for the truth, the adult reader will see shades of different books within the tale and see how wonderfully Pyper has drawn it all into a tale that seems very believable. This is not a book to be read in spurts, but to be enjoyed in one long read, so be awarned! But it IS one you have to have on your reading list!


About the Author:

Andrew Pyper is the author of eight novels, including The Only Child and The Demonologist, which won the International Thriller Writers award for Best Hardcover Novel and was selected for the Globe and Mail’s Best 100 Books of 2013 and Amazon’s 20 Best Books of 2013. Among his previous books, Lost Girls won the Arthur Ellis Award and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and The Killing Circle was a New York Times Best Crime Novel of the Year. Three of Pyper’s novels, including The Demonologist and The Damned, are in active development for feature film. He lives in Toronto. Visit AndrewPyper.com.

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