THE #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER!
The #1 internationally bestselling author of The Demonologist radically reimagines the origins of gothic literature’s founding masterpieces – Frankenstein, The 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.
“Andrew Pyper has concocted a darkly entrancing tale that sweeps you off your feet from its first pages. Filled with deliriously clever nods to the grand Gothic tradition, The Only Child is also fiercely original, wildly provocative and utterly satisfying, beginning to end.”
— Megan Abbott, bestselling author of The Fever and You Will Know Me
“Pyper upends genre conventions once again…a high-concept dark fantasy novel. Lily’s journeys with a monster who inspired the very literary tradition Pyper so skilfully exploits provides…a satisfying confrontation with darkness, both personal and mythological, that readers expect from the best horror.”
— Toronto Star
“Gothic fans rejoice!”
— Globe and Mail
“Pyper’s writing is gripping, and readers will undoubtedly make comparisons to Stephen King.”
— Library Journal
“Propulsive…a neo-gothic adventure.”
— Quill & Quire
“A fascinating, disturbing, horrifying, engaging novel.”
— Mystery People
“A breathtaking story rife with emotion and chilling suspense.”
— The Big Thrill Magazine
“So you start reading The Only Child, Pyper’s newest book, and suddenly – kaboom! – the story is shot like a cannon blast across a very dark sky. Exactly the sort of light we pine for.”
– Josh Malerman, author of Bird Box and Black Mad Wheel
“In The Only Child, Andrew Pyper has delivered a seductive gothic thriller for the modern age. Crafted with dark intrigue and cinematic drive, this mesmerizing journey into the heart of a monster is, at once, compelling, eerie and brilliantly satisfying.”
– Ami McKay, author of The Birth House and The Witches of New York
“Over the past few years, Andrew Pyper has become one of my favorite writers, consistently impressing me with his intelligent, darkly atmospheric, richly characterized novels. The Only Child is as much a psychological inquiry as it is an adrenaline-fueled thriller, layered with menace, mystery, and startling revelations that span centuries. A book that begs to be read in one sitting, with the doors locked, the lights low, and a sharp knife and a jug of holy water within reach, just in case.”
— Benjamin Percy, author of The Dead Lands, Thrill Me, Red Moon and The Wilding
“Andrew Pyper’s The Only Child cleverly re-imagines the 19th century gothic classics while spinning a thrilling, touching, and distinctly 21st century monster story.”
– Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts and Disappearance at Devil’s Rock