Advance Praise for Withered
"Withered is a slow burn psychological horror that will consume its readers through its exploration of the toxicity and timelessness of grief and the way it chokes all those it touches. The time-paused town of Black Stone reveals to readers what it means to conquer death and what it means to be alive. Wilmot elegantly illuminates the power of art and its impact on identity and memory, while painting a vivid definition of a ghost town with their prose."
– Ai Jiang, Nebula finalist and author of Linghun and I Am Ai
"Unwinding like a bandage from an old wound, Withered explores the cost of living with ourselves and our fragile histories. Wilmot deconstructs the haunted house and finds a home worth saving."
– Andrew F. Sullivan, author of The Marigold and The Handyman Method
"Withered is a compassionate exploration of mental health, hauntings,
and the way grief can pull, stretch, or erode our sense of self. Told with wit
and warmth, it is a triumph of love in the face of heartache and death."
– Suzan Palumbo, Nebula and World Fantasy Award finalist
"Withered is the very best kind of horror novel, a book that makes visible
the challenges of mental illness and grief and gives them a story that
deeply acknowledges that pain and trauma. Beautiful, sad, and scary, and
I couldn’t have asked for anything more."
– Jen Sookfong Lee, author of Superfan
"In this clever mix of The Haunting of Hill House, Stranger Things, and
Death with Interruptions, A.G.A. Wilmot has created a narrative that
digs beyond the abyss and provides something entirely new, merely by asking a simple question: What if we just said ‘no’ to Death? It’s a beautiful examination not just of grief, but of the will to live—something we sorely need."
– Adam Pottle, award-winning author of Apparitions
Reviews for Withered
Withered (Publishers Weekly, 25/01/2024)
"Ellis’s recovery from their eating disorder cunningly intertwines with the ghost story as Wilmot interrogates the human desire for control over one’s body, natural forces, and even life and death. Readers looking for true frights may be disappointed, but others will be pleased they gave this a chance."
Withered (Booklist, 15/03/2024)
"Wilmot’s fast-paced psychological-horror novel offers a fresh spin on the haunted-house trope, with well-drawn queer and trans representation at its center. This thought-provoking blend of psychological and supernatural horror will appeal to fans of Stranger Things and allegorical haunted-house novels like Carissa Orlando’s The September House (2023)."
Withered (Sound & Fury Book Reviews, 04/04/2024)
Withered (All the Books and the Ways, 26/04/2024)
"📖 This trans-authored, queer psychological horror novel explores the haunting reality of grief and mental illness. After their father's tragic death, and surviving a life-threatening eating disorder, 18-year-old Ellis and their mother relocate to the seemingly tranquil town of Black Stone for a fresh start. However, Black Stone harbors a sinister secret, with high death rates in surrounding areas and rumors of their new home being haunted. As Ellis begins experiencing eerie phenomena, they soon uncover a long-standing spectral conflict that puts their family — and the entire town — at stake."
Withered (White Wall Review, 31/05/2024)
"Perhaps fittingly, there are no easy answers to the trauma found in Withered, nor clean ones. Healing is a messy, uncomfortable process, and Withered makes no attempt to hide or undercut this fact. It’s a process that forces us to look deep inside and ask ourselves the questions we might already know the answers to. It involves a level of acceptance of our flaws that can be scary at times, but necessary all the same. Ellis’ journey demonstrates this in a compelling way, as it’s this realization that allows them to heal and help others heal on their journeys."
Withered (Absolute Underground, 12/06/2024)
"How many horror books are there about haunted houses? Thousands! As I groaned to myself about the concept, I found myself engrossed in Wilmot’s work. FINE, this one is different! Shocking, I know. New ideas are rare and they nailed it. This is a very modern, queer, paranormal, Canadian horror story that would be appropriate for a young adult reader and could easily translate to film." (cont., p. 97)
Withered (Storygraph)
"This horror novel uses incredible storytelling to allow readers the opportunity to explore the dark secrets of small town USA, and the power of love, grief, and death. The emotions were extremely well-captured through the entirety of the book, and it was joy to watch past and present stories became increasingly intertwined within the confines of a single house. I was not expecting a horror novel to have this much heart and soul in it, but I was proven wrong, and I am so thankful that I was. This was an absolutely wonderful experience, so much so that I wish I could have a chance to do it all over again." (cont.)
Advance Praise for The Death Scene Artist
"From the jaw-dropping opening pages when we meet a protagonist perusing their remarkable inventory of 'outfits,' up to the very last page, this novel kept me riveted. This is a wonderful book, surreal, disturbing and liberating in the very best way."
– Suzette Mayr, author of Monoceros
"Wilmot brings a sensually complete sense of reality to the unreal worlds of on- and off-screen Hollywood. Wilmot's serious play with language and with form makes The Death Scene Artist a hypnotic, surprising novel that doesn't sacrifice emotion for irony."
– Nathan Ripley, author of Find You in the Dark
Reviews for The Death Scene Artist
Emergent Fiction (Brandon Mcfarlane, University of Toronto Quarterly, 02/03/2021)
"Andrew Wilmot's The Death Scene Artist is unlike anything you've ever read. From a structural perspective, the novel is a surrealist experiment in metaphor. . . . A fun novel that satirizes Hollywood clichés."
The Death Scene Artist by Andrew Wilmot (Alvaro Zinos-Amaro, Strange Horizons, 20/05/2019)
"The Death Scene Artist, though engrossed in questions of the fluidity of identity and the performative self, is heavily invested in character, which in turn makes it well worth investing in as a story."
Zuri Etoshia Anderson Reviews The Death Scene Artist (Zuri Etoshia Anderson, Heavy Feather Review, 29/11/2018)
"I think what I appreciate most about this book is the ambiguity of its genre. We are so used to compartmentalizing books and stories into these categories, and I feel like Wilmot is playing those standard publishing conventions. Is this book technically surrealism? Magical realism? Horror? Science fiction-esque? Something else entirely? Who knows. The book has a lot of those conventions, and I'm content with that. Might be poking a little too deep here, but Wilmot may be challenging us to look past genre and categories and at the essence of a novel when it arrives on the shelves: the story."
Dizzying debut delivers cinematic noir (Alan MacKenzie, Winnipeg Free Press, 24/11/2018)
"Violent and grotesque, this book is not for the squeamish. [T]here is a lot for fans or topical horror and dark comedy. Wilmot clearly has something to say here about our culture's obsession with celebrity and our desire to overshare online, as well as gender identity and loneliness."
Starting Out (Becky Robertson, Quill & Quire, November 2018)
"The novel has the tinge of a scandalous revenge story, which adds to its appeal, as does some incisive commentary about the nature of unrequited love and crises of body, gender, and personal identity."
Andrew Wilmot Tells Brilliant Lies in Bizarre, Surreal Debut Novel (Jay C. Mims, Into the Void, 16/10/2018)
"There is not a single instance in this novel when a reader is going to know with absolute certainty that M____ isn't lying. And what a compelling liar they are! From the very first page, M____ draws you into these blog posts they're writing in an attempt to make some semblance of sense of the last few years of their life. They aren't lying to us, though, but also to themselves. This self-deceit is what makes M____ such a compelling and realistic character in this bizarre, surreal novel. Wilmot, through this gloriously broken character, holds up a cracked mirror to his audience and demands they look because he knows they haven't been."