Bestselling author Andrew Pyper returns with a thrilling new novel about one woman’s search for a mad killer, and the unsettling relationship that binds them.

What if you learned your father wasn’t who you thought he was? What if you learned you carried secrets deep within your blood?

Dr. Lily Dominick has seen her fair share of bizarre cases as a forensic psychiatrist working with some of New York’s most dangerous psychotic criminals. But nothing can prepare Lily for her newest patient.

Client 46874-A is nameless, and insists that he is not human. He tells Lily that he was not born, but created over two hundred years ago, and that he wants Lily to know what he is. As she listens to this man describe the twisted crime he’s committed, she can’t shake the feeling that he’s come for her—especially once he reveals that he knew her mother.

Lily Dominick was only six years old when her mother was violently murdered while Lily sat unscathed in the next room of their cabin. Investigators assumed it was a bear attack, but she has never been sure about what really happened that day. Now, this madman—this monster—may have the answers she’s been searching for.

When he suddenly escapes from the hospital and kills Lily’s boss, she does the unthinkable. She sets out on a hunt for the killer, not to return him to the authorities, but to unlock the mysteries he holds to her past.

The Only Child is a riveting thriller that asks dangerous questions about family ties that are bred and born in the blood.

ANDREW PYPER is the author of Lost Girls, his highly acclaimed first novel that was a bestseller in Canada, in the Top 10 on the TimesUK paperback list and in the Top 30 of The New York Times paperback bestseller list. The novel was selected as a Notable Book of the Year by The Globe and Mail and The New York Times and is currently being adapted for the screen. His second novel, The Trade Mission, was selected as a Top 10 Best Book of the Year by the Toronto Star and was published in Canada, the US and the UK to great acclaim. Pyper is also theauthor of Kiss Me, a collection of short stories. While researching and writing The Wildfire Season, he spent three of the past five summers living in the Yukon. His home is in Toronto. Visit his website at www.andrewpyper.com.

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“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

PRAISE FOR THE ONLY CHILD

“Gothic fans, rejoice! . . . An addictive cycle of cliffhanger chapter endings, quick resolutions, and taut, punchy sentences.”
— THE GLOBE AND MAIL

“So you're 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

“Pyper writes beautiful, scary books that would keep Robert Louis Stevenson up at night.”
— ROBERT ROTENBERG, author of Stray Bullets and Old City Hall

“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 has honed his craft as finely as Michael has honed his murderous impulses. This makes for a propulsive read, and will help this book make a smooth transition when it inevitably makes the leap to the big screen.”
— QUILL & QUIRE

“International horror royalty (often compared to the crowned ruler, Stephen King).”
— METRO CANADA

“Pyper’s writing is gripping, and readers will undoubtedly make comparisons to Stephen King.”
— LIBRARY JOURNAL

"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

“Pyper upends genre conventions once again . . . a high-concept dark fantasy novel . . . Lily's journey with a monster who inspired the very literary tradition Pyper so skillfully exploits provides . . . a satisfying confrontation with darkness, both personal and mythological, that readers expect from the best horror.”
— TORONTO STAR

“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 Witches of New York