Try Not to Die: In this Damned House

Try Not To Die #13

by Robert Essig, Mark Tullius (editor), Lyndsey Smith (editor)

Do You Dare Enter This Damned House? This is the first Extreme Horror Edition of Try Not to Die, designed for adult readers only. It features intense, disturbing themes, graphic violence, and psychological horror. Please review the content warnings carefully before reading.Markus is back—and this time, his twisted game has escalated. Using his magical model town, he manipulates the lives of innocent citizens, orchestrating horrific events as a form of dark amusement. With every new disaster, Markus's sadistic pleasure grows, as he places ordinary objects in the rooms of his models, knowing they will lead to unimaginable tragedy in real life.

In Try Not to In This Damned House, you will navigate four separate stories filled with terror, danger, and unrelenting choices. The odds are stacked against you in each one, and only the right decisions will allow you to survive. Can you endure the horrific challenges of this cursed house, or will it destroy you before the end?

This interactive extreme horror novel is linked to This Damned House and This Damned House 2, but it stands alone as a haunting, blood-soaked experience. If you’re a fan of Goosebumps® or Choose Your Own Adventure® but crave a much darker, more intense journey, this book will push you to your limits.

What awaits you inside?

Over a dozen horrific outcomes.

4 separate chilling stories.

Can you survive the nightmare, or will you succumb to the horrors lurking within?

Trigger Content This book contains disturbing themes, including but not limited

Violence and GorePsychological HorrorAbusive RelationshipsForced CaptivityDeathTraumaTry Not to In This Damned House is a brutal and terrifying adventure that is not for the faint-hearted. Grab your copy now and test your will to survive in this nightmare.

154 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 25, 2024

About the author

Robert Essig is the author of 30 books such as Baby Fights, Disco Rice, and Master of Bodies, which was nominated for a Splatterpunk Award. He has published over 130 short stories and edited three anthologies. Robert lives with his family in east Tennessee.

Reviews

[Veronica ☠️ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Markus is back! If you're not familiar with Essigs This Damned House series, both books in the series have 4 short stories with a wrap around story being Markus' point of view. Markus is the puppetmaster of several 4plexes in Greenwood Planes. He has the ability to put his tenants in some crazy, sometimes disgusting, always violent situations. This installment was no different!

All 4 stories and Markus' story were excellent but I'd like to highlight 1 of the stories that really stuck out to me. In the story 299 Stab Wounds, we follow a man who lives in the same apartment where his wife and children were brutally murdered. He is haunted by the memories, the crime scene photos, and faint whispers of his family. Dwelling in his grief and sorrow, he can't seem to leave, especially because the main thing that is eating his alive was the person who did this to his family.

299 Stab Wounds really made me feel so many emotions. The grief and pain were intense to me and feeling his guilt was super sad. Such a powerful, yet super sad story.
This book was so much fun! Each story has options where you choose from, the point is to not die and yet, I died a lot 😂 It's a fun way to engage readers and it was a different reading experience for me. Definitely check this one out for a fun reading experience. Thank you for the arc Essig

[Shannon Reviews · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book and how each of the 4 stories fit so well together. This is the first extreme horror try not to die and I hope Mark does more cause this was perfect. Please be advised of the trigger warnings as there are a few before reading. This is my second Robert Essig book and now I want to read This Damned House 1 and 2.

[Josh Hitch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great This Damned House collection

The third This Damned House where Markus once again tortures the occupants of a 4plex he owns with his trusty model of the town. The model has power over the actual town, and when he places an object into the window of an apartment in the model it takes out the occupants in odd ways based on that object. This one has a twist its a dark choose your own adventure book. I will admit I didn't like the choose your own adventure concept even when I was a kid and was kind of bummed that this series went that direction. However I should have known Essig wouldn't let me down and that he would hit it out of the park like always. Not only are the tales ever bit as brutal, really are no happy endings, the wraparound gives you more insight into the mysterious Markus.

Highly recommended, don't let the choose your own adventure concept dull your excitement for this collection. Its just enhances the enjoyment, looking forward to more of these.

[Lisa Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bibliophilia Templum review
https://bibliophiliatemplum.wordpress.com/
Try Not to Die in This Damned House . . . but you probably will, probably more than once. Robert Essig has written a This Damned House book for Mark Tullis’s interactive Try Not to Die series, where you choose your path and each book has one correct path through but dozens of ways to die. And there are many horrific ways to die in This Damned House, as fans of the books know all too well.

As the synopsis blurb says, Try Not to Die: In This Damned House is a brutal and terrifying adventure . . . not for the faint-hearted. Robert Essig’s expertise with evocative Extreme Horror is on point, and evocative is a key word here. These Damned House tales are particularly poignant in comparison, with the characters struggling with internal horrors as well as external ones. The added element of extreme psychological horror makes for particularly chilling reading. Add to that the Try Not to Die element and you’re in for a driving and brutal reading experience.

Fans of Essig’s This Damned House books will love this installment in the series, even if trying not to die is a relentless extra tension that has you exclaiming out loud (or maybe that was just me). Try Not to Die fans will find this extreme horror installment intense, so even though this is far from Essig’s most extreme work, Extreme Horror fans only, please; some content may be too much for some readers.

Try Not to Die in This Damned House is a gruesome, wrenching, and brutal reading experience. Highly recommended for Extreme Horror fans.

[ScarlettAnomalyReads · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an extreme TNTD, and thankfully i had read Damn this House recently, which by the way, i really enjoyed, its fucked up.

So keep that in mind while you try not to die in this one, its a bloodbath.

I died 7 times on this one, not bad, but i feel like i could squeeze a few more deaths in.
I know its Try NOT to Die, but one of the best parts is seeing what new and fucked up deaths can happen, especially if you are familiar with Mark or Robert...anything can happen.

How many times will you die?

[Crystal DeBoard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an extreme horror TNTD interactive experience. They story was awesome, and I love the writing style. Robert Essig was the author of the first extreme horror book I ever read, and he did not disappoint here.

[Alexandra Nisneru · Rating 5 out of 5]

This might actually be my favourite one from the TNTD series (at least so far). I love my stories as violent as possible and even though, I might soften up on certain scenes, I still like to see blood and body parts. The grim scenes in this book are variate and written tastefully, which will make you enjoy it even more. I enjoyed it so much, that I started making intentionally wrong choices, just for the absolute delight of seeing the very elaborate and inventive methods of death.

[Danielle Hennessy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved choose your own path books as a kid and this was amazing, buts definitely not for kids, or the faint of heart! Lol.

Other choose your own path books take you on a winding journey of choices before coming to an abrupt end and then leave you backtracking multiple times, often resulting in missing parts of the story or endings. This one gives you two or three choices and, apart from one particular section, there is only one right choice, meaning you can read all the endings where you die and still get back to the main story easily because it takes you back there. Fantastic way to do it for people like me who want to read everything without getting frustrated 😂

The story idea was very clever and had me hooked. Think I may have to take a look at This Damned House 1 & 2 now!

[Sammi Dyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Try Not To Die In This Damn House written by Robert Essig is the first of hopefully many more extreme horror versions in TNTD interactive books brought to us by Mark Tullius. The layout in this book was gore-rrific , and I really liked that the different stories all weaved together. This was my first experience with Robert Essig and boy, did he bring the carnage. I will definitely be reading his books that inspired this one. I’m not done with Markus and his meddling yet. I’m hoping there will be more from him in the TNTD Series.

[Leighah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my first time reading one of these books. I must admit I prefer to read a normal book format, although this was a fun way to take in a story. I have to say I wasn't very good at picking the right path to take, but that was half the fun. I really enjoyed the last of the four stories simply because it made me doubt what I thought I knew. It was great to read another installation of the damned house series. I will definitely be trying another of the types of books in the future.

[Sandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

The fun thing about this series is the weird ways to die but also trying not to die. However this book you die no matter what choice you make (it just takes a little longer) so not as interesting or fun. Plus I just don’t enjoy disgusting horror, which this title seems to focus on. So just not for me.

[Janelle Halstead · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good book related to This Damned House books 1 and 2 by Robert Essig. I really enjoyed these books and this was no disappointment. Can you survive?

[ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my first ‘try not to die’ book and it was a fun read.

I wouldn’t say the stories are amazing, but the pick your own journey makes it a fun ride.

3 ⭐️

[Jacek · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gamebook that is very dark, even by the standard of the Try Not to Die series. The warnings in the description are spot-on. Interestingly, the gamebook is not a singular story, but rather four shorter narratives set within a shared universe, and accompanied by the framing story that connects them.