Ohhhh WOW! I want to thank Sam Vickery, Bookouture and Netgalley for allowing me the privilege of reading My Only Child. It was such a beautiful, poignant and emotional book that genuinely touched my heart on a personal level. I adopted my son, so My Only Child was deeply moving in a way that no other book has ever been. I will update my review to include more information and also to include the links where I share my review, but I just HAD to reach out to you immediately to thank you and tell you how awestruck I was by My Only Child. Thank you, Sam Vickery, for tugging at my heart strings and showing the world how the struggles and beauty of adoption are real!

Thanks netgalley and Sam Vickery for this really great family story.
Katherine was expecting twins a girl and boy, but during the labour her baby girl died and she had a have a caesarean.
Her baby boy was fine, but Katherine wanted to have a house full of children and she found it difficult to cope.
Until she decided to adopt a baby.
Her mother hazel was pushed away as Katherine found her overbearing, it must have been terrible for a mother not to be able to help her daughter and her grandson.
Katherine then adopted a baby who did not do anything but scream when she held him, but seemed to favour katherines husband Jamie.
Had Katherine done the correct thing in adopting?
The story then worked out how to make amends with hazel and adapt to coping with her new baby.
Yes loved this book.

Sad but well written! My heart broke over and over I’m this story as the lives of both Katherine and her mother unfolded. I could feel the pain and struggles they faced and ultimately the strength of a mother’s love

My Only Child by Sam Vickery was just a beautifully written book. You "will need tissues" and a lot of them as it's a emotional heartbreaking hard read that will leave a lump on your throat and for your grabbing some tissues.

In Sam's latest book it covers so many sensitives issues with the loss of a child at birth, and then not being able to have any more children, alcoholism, how some people handle grief, and then international adoption which made it a very good book for me.

Hmmm.......Don't judge the book by its cover..........Well, I loved the cover and I did and the cover was just perfect for this latest book by Sam. 

I highly recommend this latest book............5 star read.

BIg thank you to Bookouture and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.

Book Description:

There he is, my baby boy. His eyes are closed, his tiny rosebud mouth is pursed in sleep. My eyes well up as I catch a whiff of his newborn skin and I swallow back a wave of emotion. I should feel happy, I should feel grateful, but all I can think about is everything I just lost…

It’s a miracle when Katherine’s baby boy is born healthy. But his twin sister doesn’t survive, and when Katherine is told she can’t have any more children the loss is almost too much for her to bear.

Katherine always saw herself having a big family: she remembers how the loneliness of being an only child used to overwhelm her, and she is desperate to adopt a sibling for her son.

But her husband Davis won’t agree. He worries that Katherine will struggle when the new baby arrives. What if growing their family only adds to the grief she feels over losing her little girl? What if this breaks their marriage apart?

And Katherine is forced to make a choice. Give up the second child she has always dreamed of or risk losing the family she already has?

An unforgettable and heart-wrenching page-turner about fighting for those we love. Readers of Jodi Picoult, Diane Chamberlain and Kate Hewitt will remember this story forever.  

BLOG TOUR REVIEW 

Review for 'My Only Child' by Sam Vickery . 

Read and reviewed via NetGalley for Bookouture publishers and Bookouture anonymous 

Publication date 2nd November 2020

This is the second book that I have read by this author. The first book I read is called 'One Last Second' which I gave 5/5 and would highly recommend also reading. 

I was originally drawn to this book by  its eye catching cover and intriguing synopsis. It also stated in the blurb that readers of Jodi Picoult amongst others will remember this story forever. I am a MASSIVE Picoult fan so am looking forward to see if the book lives up to this. I have previously read 'One Last Second' by Sam Vickery and gave it 5/5 so hopefully can give this the same. I must admit I was also biased due to the publisher being Bookouture. I have yet to read a book published by Bookouture  that I haven't enjoyed. Hopefully this won't be the first... Watch this space! (Written before I started reading the book).

This novel consists of 39 chapters and an epilogue. The chapters are short to medium in length so possible to read 'just one more chapter' before bed...OK, I know yeah right, but still just in case! 

This book is based in London , UK 🇬🇧 . I always enjoy when books are set in the UK as I'm from Wales and have sometimes visited areas mentioned in the book. This makes it easier to picture the scenes. I have, in fact, visited Bath so am hoping to be able to set the scenes smoother in my head. 

This book is written in first person perspective and the main protagonists are Hazel and Katherine. I enjoy books written in first person with several protagonists as it let's you see the bigger picture of what's going on and you get to know more characters more, what they are thinking and what they are doing. It feels like you get to see the whole picture and not miss out in anything. It also feels like you get more of a bond with the characters than you would in third person perspective. 

Well I must say another well done to Sam Vickery on another very successful novel!! This book is very well written and reads smoothly. The synopsis and the cover work perfectly with the storyline. 

The storyline itself is an emotionally packed roller-coaster ride bringing tears along with some happiness. I found some parts very hard to read being a mum to twin myself and made the mistake of reading it while waiting on the school run and ending up picking up my son while trying to hide my tears. It is a compelling read and shows the difficulties of both child loss and adoption along with the stress and emotions it puts on families involved. I enjoyed looking back on Hazel's past and really did feel for her. Get ready for a tear jerking page turner. 

The characters are very well built up and I enjoyed watching them develop, grow and bond with each other. The difference between them at the beginning of the story to the end is amazing and very well worked out. They are all strong and realistic and I really bonded with them. The character development I found the most fascinating was Davis and I'm glad how it all worked out. 

I think this book would work out fascinating as a movie and I would love to watch it if this ever happened. Another congratulations to Sam Vickery, I am looking forward to reading more of your successful novels. 

Overall an emotionally packed page turner that should only be read with tissues on hand!! 

Genres covered in this novel include  Psychological Fiction and Religious Fiction amongst others. 

I would recommend this book to the fans of the above as well as fans of Jodie Picoult and tear jerkers.

274 pages.

This book is £1.99 to purchase on kindle via Amazon which I think is an absolute bargain for this book!!! 

Rated 5/5 (I loved it ) on Goodreads, Instagram, Amazon UK and Amazon US and on over 30 Facebook pages plus my blog on Facebook. 

Feel free to add me on Goodreads or follow me on my website or Facebook for more reviews 

#MyOnlyChild #Bookouture  #SamVickery #NetGalley #BookReview #BlogTour #BooksOnTour
@SamVickery @Bookouture @Bookworm1986 @bookworm86 

https://kcmw86.wixsite.com/bookworm86

https://m.facebook.com/Bookworm1986/?ref=bookmarks
  
https://m.facebook.com/Bookwork86/?__tn__=%2As-R

Author Bio:

Sam Vickery is an English author who loves gritty, emotional stories that can make you sob. As a child, she was forever getting in trouble for being caught with her nose in a book, and these days are no different. She lives on the south coast of England with her husband, two children and a cat that thinks it's a dog. 
 https://www.facebook.com/SamVickeryWrites/

Buy Links:

Amazon: https://bit.ly/2TkXfLS
Apple: https://apple.co/3j6QKrN
Kobo: https://bit.ly/38XTS4i
Google: https://bit.ly/38XVfjv

Ugh! This book! 
Sam Vickery's My Only Child is one hell of a read.
But, damn, it's a tough read. 
As a mom who knows way too many people who lost babies, who knows way too many couples who divorced after losing a child, this was a horrific read. 
The writing is amazing. The depth of the characters is marvelous. 
But the storyline is a heart-wrenching one.

My Only Child was a totally gripping and heartbreaking read, I absolutely love Sam's style of writing and how truth to life they are, a highly recommend read.

Hazel eagerly awaits the birth of her first grandchild as her daughter Katherine goes into labour. The family are plunged into sadness and grief despite the safe delivery of a goregous baby boy.  His twin sister died during the birth and an emergency hysterectomy destroyed any chance of future children. Katherine is desperate for more children after growing up as an only child. Adoption is their only option but her husband and mother are set against it...
I'd only just recovered from the emotional depths of Sam Vickery's last book (One Last Second) when I signed up for this book. I knew I was in for something that would break my heart but that I would also love. The writing is so authentic that we almost become the characters because we can feel their emotions so vivdly.
Katherine's devastation at the death of both her baby girl and the potential for more natural children is very realistic and absolutely hearbreaking to read.
Meanwhile we see chapters from Hazel's unhappy marriage which explain how she became the overbearing mother she is today. As both a mother and a daughter, I can see both sides of the story. It is a difficult balance!
Family relationships are delicately negotiated and emotional issues are handled sensitively over the course of the book. The flashback chapters offer us a greater understanding of how the past is impacting on decisions in the present. The use of the first person narrative for Katherine and Hazel allows us to explore their emotions in depth.
My Only Child is an emotional and enjoyable book but have the tissues ready!

I didn't find this book gripping, it took me a long time to read it as it just didn't grab my attention. I found it dragged out a lot. In saying that it was a very well written book but just not for me.

My Only Child is the first book I have read by author, Sam Vickery and I wasn’t sure what to expect when first digging into this story. I didn’t realize the range of emotions I would go through as Vickery took me on a journey with a family so broken and in need of repair. This is a character driven story surrounded by a heartbreaking subject matter, the loss of a child.

Katherine and Davis are about to have twins, but something goes wrong with the delivery and her baby girl dies while her son is born healthy. Because of the difficult delivery, Katherine is told she can never have any more children which absolutely devastates her. Katherine knows what it is like being an only child and she has always wanted a big family, but now it is no longer in the cards for her. This leads her to wanting to adopt another child even if her husband, Davis, does not agree. Can this fractured family finally come together or is the death of their child too much for them to handle?

Vickery weaves one emotional story and I guess I would advise to have some tissues handy because this is quite the tearjerker. You are taken on a rollercoaster of emotions and many scenes just shook me to the core. I can;t ever imagine what it is like to lose a child, nor would I ever wish this to happen to anyone. I have family members who have lost their child and it’s absolutely devastating and I have seen the range of emotions they have gone through while trying to process their loss. Vickery really captures the emotional toll parents go through.

This is a very character driven story and with that being said, I didn’t necessarily like any of the characters in the beginning. Katherine, husband Davis, and her mother Hazel were not one family unit and there were secrets being kept amongst all of them which made for some pretty tense scenes. I will say though that each character was three dimensional and you could almost feel their pain along with their frustrations.

My Only Child is a heartbreaking and multi layered story told with honesty and realness. This is a five star read for me and one I highly recommend. You definitely do not want to miss out on this story.

This is a beautiful story focusing on a mother and daughter and family secrets. The characters are so well described as they experience such grief and heartache, leading to an emotional ending. Highly recommended with a box of tissues nearby

I received this book through net galley in return for an honest review.
I absolutely loved this book I devoured it in two evenings, and was sad to see it finished.
We hear the story of Katherine and her husband Davis and Katherine’s mother Hazel.
We find out why the two women are so determined to be great mothers to their children

There he is, my baby boy. His eyes are closed, his tiny rosebud mouth is pursed in sleep. My eyes well up as I catch a whiff of his newborn skin and I swallow back a wave of emotion. I should feel happy, I should feel grateful, but all I can think about is everything I just lost…

It’s a miracle when Katherine’s baby boy is born healthy. But his twin sister doesn’t survive, and when Katherine is told she can’t have any more children the loss is almost too much for her to bear.

Katherine always saw herself having a big family: she remembers how the loneliness of being an only child used to overwhelm her, and she is desperate to adopt a sibling for her son.

But her husband Davis won’t agree. He worries that Katherine will struggle when the new baby arrives. What if growing their family only adds to the grief she feels over losing her little girl? What if this breaks their marriage apart?

And Katherine is forced to make a choice. Give up the second child she has always dreamed of or risk losing the family she already has?

This book reminded me of Jodi Picoult's earlier work.  It was an emotional read, but I struggled to connect to the book.  I wasn't gripped, but it was an okay read.  The book was well written.

This is not one of those books where you are turning the page as quickly as possible to see what happens. There aren't any dramatic twists and turns, no red herrings, and no drama, per se. Instead, what you are invited to experience is a certain period in a family's life, particularly a mother who has not only been told one of her babies has died but due to an emergency hysterectomy, she can never birth another child.</p>

I haven't had the joy of experiencing motherhood in any form yet but I was hit hard with emotion while reading My Only Child. Any mother (or father, for that matter) reading the book is sure to be in floods of tears. The writing is so beautiful that it allows you to feel every bit of Katherine's pain. There is a touching scene where she holds her little girl that just broke me.

Yet <em>My Only Child</em> doesn't sugarcoat, dramatise, or even romanticise motherhood in any way. It just tells it like it is. There will be ups and downs. There will be moments of happiness and hardship. There will be moments where you feel like a terrible mother. There will be moments where you will protect your child at any cost. This realness is what makes My Only Child a great book.

What's not mentioned in the blurb is that the reader also gets an insight into Katherine's mother, Hazel. Alternating chapters are told from Hazel's perspective as she tries to cope with her feelings of being pushed away by her daughter, while also presenting flashbacks that help us understand Hazel's sometimes suffocating ways. Both Katherine's and Hazel's stories tie up neatly into one excellent reflection on motherhood.

Raw, Emotional and Realistic! This book will take you to the heart of grief and all that surrounds it and yet compel to read on right to the end.

From the outset, this is dramatic with a hysterectomy being required and the utter sadness and devastation that Katherine has to live with. It's high on very intense emotion. It's a book that will resonate with so many people who have experienced loss and especially loss of a child.

The book goes between Katherine and Hazel. It isn't all about the sadness though. There's some more positive emotions too, through some heartwarming romance and care shown as the book flips a bit between "Then" and "Now". This is a real family story of strength, growing up, romance, love in all different forms, sadness. It has it all. It isn't a relaxing read, but then loss is anything but a chilled out experience and it is raw and then when opportunities are taken from you, they heighten even more and it is captured well in this book. The grief is written so believably. I'm sure many readers will have experienced grief before, even if not with the loss of a child, but with a loved one and will be able to easily empathise and sympathise with the characters and recognise the signs, including the physical ones. It's pretty detailed. It is a book that you can, even though the subject matter is deep, get caught up in and be whisked all the way to the end in a couple of sittings.

There is hope for a future after experiencing so much devastating heartbreak and anguish, but there is also the sense of things tearing apart at the seams. It's pretty realistic because after such grief, people do all react differently and it isn't all plain-sailing, as is depicted throughout. The ending is so tender, it's worth reaching there too.

Wow! Such an emotional, moving read that completely consumed me from start to finish!. The characters all had their own unique strengths and weaknesses, the ways in which these traits influenced the characters relationships added a new depth to the story. 
Perfectly plotted, beautifully written and rich with emotion....this story will stay with me for a long time to come.

I wept reading this, great big noisy sobs, eyes scrunched up and a salty taste in my mouth. I believe I drooled a little. There may have been snot bubbles. I can’t recommend this beautiful, heart-breaking and gut-wrenching novel enough. My Only Child is incredible book. It’s been ages since a book affected me so much. I loved the fact the book moves between the present with Katherine and Davis coping with their grief in very different ways and the past of Katherine’s Mum, Hazel, showing her marriage to a high functioning alcoholic, the truth about Katherine’s origin and her own loss which causes her to fear for the path her grieving daughter is on. I wasn’t sure how things were going to turn out but I loved the direction the book took.

First, I want to thank Sam Vickery, Bookouture and NetGalley for providing me with this book so I can bring you this review. 

Sam Vickery knows how to pull on my heart strings and make me tear up with her beautiful stories. She made me fall in love with her writing style in her previous book so when I heard about My Only Child I had to read it! I am so glad that I did! 

The cover just melted my heart. It is just so beautiful and picturesque! That alone with the title just pulled on my heart strings and knew I was in for a heart felt read.

Sam dedicates her book to her son, Viggo. She says watching him grow into such a creative, curious, kind-hearted little boy has been one of her greatest pleasures in life. She loves you to the end of the universe and back. 

Sam jumps right into the fast paced, heartbreaking, totally shocking, heart wrenching beginning to a story that will bring out many emotions inside of you. 

This book brings up very sensitive topics such as loss of a child at birth, not being able to have any more children, alcoholism, how people handle grief, and international adoption.

Sam does an incredible job drawing out each emotion each character feels for each situation. She shows you how they feel not just tells you. You can’t help but feel total empathy for each character and what they are going through. 

The book goes from present day to the past where we learn about how Hazel met Katherine’s Dad Frank. We learn about his tragedy in his life to make him the way he was. However, the very ironic part of it is we learn the parallel between what happened back then that is similar to present day in Katherine’s life. 

There were so many times I wanted to reach into the book and give Katherine a hug! No woman should have to go through what she did. Her family wasn’t even consulted! That is what made me upset! 

I myself am not a Mom but my sister almost lost my niece as she was born at 25 weeks early. She was in the NICU for 102 days. I couldn’t imagine what would have happened if we had lost her. Luckily she is a happy, healthy, and full of life 7 year old! Who is like her Auntie and loves to read! 

Sam says something in the back of the book that really hit home to me. Her greatest lesson in life so far has been that it is the times when things veer off course and our carefully laid plans go out the window that we truly have an opportunity to learn and grow. It is these challenges that make us stronger, kinder and more generous with love and our energy, and in pushing forward even when it feels impossible, we get the greatest rewards. You have no idea how true this is for the personal situation my family is going through now. Thank you Sam for this reminder!

My Only Child by Sam Vickery is another brilliantly written, emotional and powerful story that she is famous for.I have read some of Sam's previous books and always needed tissues to hand, this is no different.
Katherine is an only child and has grown up with her mother, Hazel always almost smothering her in one way or another. Katherine discovers she is pregnant with twins she is overjoyed, but decides to not tell her mother.after complications Katherine and Davis lose their baby daughter, but still have Jamie her twin, who is delivered safely.She is told that she is unable to have any more children, this devastates Katherine as she has always wished for a large family and she makes the decision to look into adopting. After all their research they decide adopting from abroad is the best option. Katherine and Davis realise this is a process that isn't easy but with their determination they will do it. Hazel discovers the plan and she has her own secrets to keep as well. She decides to try to persuade Davis adopting isn't the answer and is not supportive. This ensures Hazel and Katherine's relationship hits rock bottom. Will anything be able to mend it?
Told from Katherine and Davis in the present and chapters from Hazel with the past, this story was seamless, we see how events affected Hazel and Katherine in the past and what Katherine and Davis are going through in the present. An emotional, complex story of relationships with many layers. Every secret, lie and loss experienced is laid bare for us to see. An excellently written story that handles adoption and every process with sensitivity. The characters, again, as I have found with Sam's books are all believable and nicely drawn out. A story that will wring every emotion out of you and one you won't forget in a hurry.
Thank you to Bookouture and NetGalley for the copy of this book to write my review today.

This book was very hard to like because on some level the character were very one dimensional and hard to enjoy. I can understand not ready to have a baby and dealing with the issues the parents had but once the baby is usually born that most reluctant parents fall in love with their kid. As for the adoption part, that was a little bit more believable than the biological kid. Again, I tried to like it but it just fell flat for me.

Thank you for the advance reader copy from Netgalley