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Only the Devil Is Here Paperback – 15 September 2020
by
Stephen Michell
(Author)
Stephen Michell
(Author)
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Product details
- Publisher : Open Road Media (15 September 2020)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 218 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1504063406
- ISBN-13 : 978-1504063401
- Dimensions : 12.7 x 0.64 x 20.32 cm
- Customer Reviews:
Product description
Review
"A very promising debut." --Toronto Star "Subtly upends expectations with a genuinely insightful examination of the essence of good and evil. By the novel's end, Michell delivers an invigorating chase story, a suspenseful horror-action hybrid with memorably warped characters, and terrific B-movie cinematic flair." --Publishers Weekly "A gripping, cinematic supernatural thriller, shot through with unsettling imagery and startling insights into the nature of good and evil. Suspenseful, scary and unexpectedly moving, it's a wild ride from start to finish." --David Demchuk, Giller Prize-nominated author of The Bone Mother
"With Only the Devil Is Here, Stephen Michell announces himself as a new and powerful presence on the literary horror scene. This is curt, violent, poetic storytelling, a Cormac McCarthyesque journey from darkness into even deeper darkness, suffused from moment one on with gothic nighttime awe and terror yet also shot through with the slimmest threads of hope--intimations of numinosity, if not of salvation. For all you probably won't like where it takes you, it's just so damn hard to turn away." --Gemma Files, Shirley Jackson Award-winning author of Experimental Film "An outstanding literary horror debut, the lean, muscular prose of which barely contains the bursting, profoundly human heart of the novel. Only the Devil Is Here is the work of a natural storyteller at the start of what will doubtless be a very long, very promising career." --Michael Rowe, award-winning author of Enter, Night; Wild Fell; and October "A breathless debut that moves too fast to accommodate bulky backstory. As such, the true nature of the characters, their origins or intentions, are only ever glimpsed. Who's good? Who's evil? Is the division between one and the other really so neat? Michell keeps the details―the idiomatic abode of both God and the Devil―elusive. It's in that murky moral unknown that Only the Devil Is Here thrives." --Bookshelf
"With Only the Devil Is Here, Stephen Michell announces himself as a new and powerful presence on the literary horror scene. This is curt, violent, poetic storytelling, a Cormac McCarthyesque journey from darkness into even deeper darkness, suffused from moment one on with gothic nighttime awe and terror yet also shot through with the slimmest threads of hope--intimations of numinosity, if not of salvation. For all you probably won't like where it takes you, it's just so damn hard to turn away." --Gemma Files, Shirley Jackson Award-winning author of Experimental Film "An outstanding literary horror debut, the lean, muscular prose of which barely contains the bursting, profoundly human heart of the novel. Only the Devil Is Here is the work of a natural storyteller at the start of what will doubtless be a very long, very promising career." --Michael Rowe, award-winning author of Enter, Night; Wild Fell; and October "A breathless debut that moves too fast to accommodate bulky backstory. As such, the true nature of the characters, their origins or intentions, are only ever glimpsed. Who's good? Who's evil? Is the division between one and the other really so neat? Michell keeps the details―the idiomatic abode of both God and the Devil―elusive. It's in that murky moral unknown that Only the Devil Is Here thrives." --Bookshelf
About the Author
Stephen Michell is a Canadian writer based in Southern Ontario. He has published short fiction in various magazines and journals, and his short story "As Worlds Collide" was featured on the podcast LeVar Burton Reads. Only the Devil Is Here is his debut novel. Find out more about Michell on Goodreads and at stephenmichell.com.
Customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
4 out of 5
28 global ratings
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Top reviews from other countries

Chris E.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fast paced and satisfying. A capably written book.
Reviewed in Canada on 30 May 2019Verified Purchase
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It effortlessly captures the horror and fantasy feel that I initially picked it up for, but it’s the way in which its two main characters, Evan and Rook, grow and develop together that gives the story its staying power. It’s the kind of book that where you know within the first few pages that the author knows what they’re doing and is capable of handling this genre, which so often falls prey to derivative themes and narratives. Its solid foundation allows you to focus on its more complex character and thematic elements, which are what elevates it above the other horror books I’ve read. Despite its (very) fast pace, the relationship between its two main characters, Evan and Rook, is developed very thoughtfully, culminating in a satisfying ending for both their narrative arcs are the story as a whole. I also enjoyed Michell’s employment of biblical themes, which again, in lesser hands can come across as clunky and ham fisted. A surprisingly good addition to my reading list.
One person found this helpful
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Daniel Henkel
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great read.
Reviewed in Canada on 30 September 2019Verified Purchase
It was especially nice knowing the environment/wilderness the author was writing of.
One person found this helpful
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GargoyleAnt
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing
Reviewed in Canada on 6 January 2018Verified Purchase
Having worked with Stephen, I knew he was talented. This book kept me reading it all in one night. Waiting for the sequel....
2 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars
Awesome read! Couldn’t put it down
Reviewed in Canada on 25 February 2018Verified Purchase
I really enjoyed reading this book! It was exciting, suspenseful, surprising and actually really hard to put down. The characters drew me in and I would definitely read more by this author!
Highly recommended
Highly recommended
2 people found this helpful
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Eclectic Reader
5.0 out of 5 stars
“Death Knows No Reunion”
Reviewed in the United States on 19 March 2018Verified Purchase
Stephen Michell wastes no time in his debut novel, Only the Devil Is Here (2017), in grabbing his reader’s attention, elevating their adrenaline level, and plunging them into a world of mystery and suspense for which there is no lull until the novel’s very end.
Only the Devil Is Here begins with a sudden and violent home invasion and bloody attacks upon foster parents Adam and Evie and the abduction of their nearly seven-year-old son, Evan. The perpetrator, an “adult male, forty to fifty years of age, tall, [with] dark hair [and a] beard,” is under “instructions not to kill the boy” and barely having left the house with the boy espies four shadowy figures closing in on them—and it isn’t the police.
For his debut novel, Michell has created a stunning and well-written thriller. Like a rural traffic sign riddled with bullet holes, it is also a novel that is peppered with purposeful contradictions and incongruities that keep the reader wondering. Early in the novel flashing red and blue lights on an emergency vehicle are spotted on a highway and they are described as both “sinister and serene.” It is a telling line representative of Michell’s entire approach to his novel. Evan’s kidnapper, Rook, also cautions the boy, “You think you see a man when you look at me, but you don’t. I’m something much more.” As the novel progresses, readers begin to be presented with evidence that Evan is also far from an ordinary child. Ironically, the duo is pursued through southern Ontario in harsh winter conditions often on foot in the wilderness as they try to avoid civilization, detection, and capture but seemingly of greater danger to them than the police are members of a much more threatening, vague form of “organization.” To survive, both kidnapper and victim are unconventionally forced to form a bond of trust with extraordinary consequences. Thus, nothing is ordinary or what it appears to be in Only the Devil Is Here which makes for riveting reading.
Intriguing minor characters come and go in Only the Devil Is Here, but Michell keeps a laser-like focus on the relationship between Rook and Evan. Descriptions of the environment in which they find themselves and the hardships and setbacks they face as they struggle to reach what Rook promises will be a safe place for Evan from those who pursue them bring the story alive. So, too, does the author’s gradual revelations of the special characteristics of his two leading characters and Michell brilliantly and realistically even has Root and Evan exchanging positions of dependency upon each other at times.
Still, the mystery of the two and their precarious, life-and-death situation and entanglement with the supernatural is never completely resolved even when readers reach the very end of the novel. Finishing Only the Devil Is Here, readers are faced with a grim realization that, regardless of the amazing events they witness in the novel with all its twists and turns, there is no total resolution, but an almost “to be continued” or “the end?” cinematic-like finale once they finish the book.
Given that Stephen Michell “is a freelance writer and editor based out of Toronto,” whose “writing has appeared in The Good Men Project, as well as in the Exile Editions speculative fiction anthology Those Who Make Us, with his story ‘As Worlds Collide’” as well as this very auspicious novel debut, Michell is a writer for readers to keep an eye out for in the future.
Only the Devil Is Here begins with a sudden and violent home invasion and bloody attacks upon foster parents Adam and Evie and the abduction of their nearly seven-year-old son, Evan. The perpetrator, an “adult male, forty to fifty years of age, tall, [with] dark hair [and a] beard,” is under “instructions not to kill the boy” and barely having left the house with the boy espies four shadowy figures closing in on them—and it isn’t the police.
For his debut novel, Michell has created a stunning and well-written thriller. Like a rural traffic sign riddled with bullet holes, it is also a novel that is peppered with purposeful contradictions and incongruities that keep the reader wondering. Early in the novel flashing red and blue lights on an emergency vehicle are spotted on a highway and they are described as both “sinister and serene.” It is a telling line representative of Michell’s entire approach to his novel. Evan’s kidnapper, Rook, also cautions the boy, “You think you see a man when you look at me, but you don’t. I’m something much more.” As the novel progresses, readers begin to be presented with evidence that Evan is also far from an ordinary child. Ironically, the duo is pursued through southern Ontario in harsh winter conditions often on foot in the wilderness as they try to avoid civilization, detection, and capture but seemingly of greater danger to them than the police are members of a much more threatening, vague form of “organization.” To survive, both kidnapper and victim are unconventionally forced to form a bond of trust with extraordinary consequences. Thus, nothing is ordinary or what it appears to be in Only the Devil Is Here which makes for riveting reading.
Intriguing minor characters come and go in Only the Devil Is Here, but Michell keeps a laser-like focus on the relationship between Rook and Evan. Descriptions of the environment in which they find themselves and the hardships and setbacks they face as they struggle to reach what Rook promises will be a safe place for Evan from those who pursue them bring the story alive. So, too, does the author’s gradual revelations of the special characteristics of his two leading characters and Michell brilliantly and realistically even has Root and Evan exchanging positions of dependency upon each other at times.
Still, the mystery of the two and their precarious, life-and-death situation and entanglement with the supernatural is never completely resolved even when readers reach the very end of the novel. Finishing Only the Devil Is Here, readers are faced with a grim realization that, regardless of the amazing events they witness in the novel with all its twists and turns, there is no total resolution, but an almost “to be continued” or “the end?” cinematic-like finale once they finish the book.
Given that Stephen Michell “is a freelance writer and editor based out of Toronto,” whose “writing has appeared in The Good Men Project, as well as in the Exile Editions speculative fiction anthology Those Who Make Us, with his story ‘As Worlds Collide’” as well as this very auspicious novel debut, Michell is a writer for readers to keep an eye out for in the future.
10 people found this helpful
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