Six Different Paths To  Darkness, Only One Leads to Survival: The Choices are in Your Hands.

By Renée S. DeCamillis

My third book, Try Not To Die: By Your Own Hand, releases on September 10, 2025—World Suicide Prevention Day. This one is a different beast than my other works. It’s written in a choose your own path format, where you, the reader, make the choices for the protagonist. There are six different potential endings, and only one leads to survival. Here is the back cover synopsis:

When you’re your own worst enemy, survival is the hardest choice of all.

At 37, Dahlia thought she’d be stronger. But years of trauma, addiction, and self-doubt have left her broken. Every decision she makes could be her last—and you’re the one making them.

In this raw and emotionally charged entry in the Try Not to Die series, you’re in control of her fate. With six harrowing paths to darkness, only one leads to survival—and it demands brutal honesty, inner strength, and the will to keep going.

This isn’t horror for entertainment.
This is horror born of real pain.

It’s not just a book. It’s a fight for survival.

Mark Tullius, EIC of Vincere Press, invited me to write this book in support of suicide prevention. Proceeds from sales are being donated to support Maine’s Mobile Crisis Hotline run through The Opportunity Alliance. After reading my first two books—The Bone Cutters, and Chisel the Bone—Mark knew I could write a raw, unflinching, and harrowing account of a woman suffering from severe depression and suicidal ideation.

Dory, the protagonist in The Bone Cutters series, suffers with those same mental health difficulties. Plus, Mark and I have both lost loved ones to suicide—three for me—and both of us have dealt with suicide ideation in the past. When Mark first asked if I’d be interested in taking on this emotionally difficult topic, I was still grieving the loss of a very dear friend taken out by suicide only two months prior. Mark’s invitation felt like a gift to me, an opportunity to write a sort of twisted goodbye to my friend whom I never had the chance to say goodbye to before he died.

So, of course, I jumped at the chance to write this book. But I didn’t only write it for my friend; I wrote it for every single person out there who is either suffering from suicidal ideation or has a loved one suffering from suicidal ideation. Surprising to me, the process of writing this story also ended up a gift to myself as well because it helped me process a lot of my past traumas and helped uncover a lot of hard truths about myself and my past. 

My friend whom I lost to suicide never knew I, too, had once been suicidal back in my teens and early twenties. He never knew that he could’ve reached out to me for support because I knew, in a sense, what he was going through. I wish I had known the emotional distress he had been in before hearing the news of his passing.

The last we had spoken, I had reached out to him a few years prior to check on how he was doing. He had moved a couple states away, and my husband and I had heard he was living a very dangerous lifestyle and wanted to make sure he was okay and safe.

Most of all, we wanted him to know we missed him and were worried about him. Unfortunately, his depression made his mind turn my words into negativity, making him think everyone thought he was a loser and that all his friends had abandoned him. I reminded him that I was his friend and was there for him, but that’s what depression does—it fills the sufferer’s mind with negative self-talk, driving them further and further into a pit of despair and self-loathing.

Rather than his depression rearing his head in that final discussion, anger took its place, and he lashed out at me instead. Drug addiction is a bitch! Had I known the emotional distress he was in at the time, I would’ve told him my story, I would’ve given him an ear to listen, emotional support, and most of all—I would’ve let him know he was not alone and he was loved. 

Sometimes, that’s all we need to keep going—someone to listen and to tell us we’re not alone.

That’s what this book is all about: showing people who are dealing with severe depression and suicidal thoughts that they are not alone and that help is out there. I wasn’t there for my friend in the end, and I agonize over that every day. Any time I hear about someone losing their battle with depression and suicidal thoughts, the old feelings I once felt come rushing back, making me feel, in a sense, what they possibly felt before they met their end. And all I want to do is bring them back, hug them, and tell them they’re not alone.

I know how that emptiness feels. I know how that loneliness feels. I know how it feels to want to give up. I know how it feels to think you can’t do anything right. I know how it feels to think you’re a loser and a fuck up. I know how it feels to think everyone is out to harm you.

I know how it feels to think you have no one to confide in. I know how it feels when you think the pain will never go away, will never get any better. And I also know the heavy shame one carries just from feeling like you’re weak because you’re depressed and suicidal. I don’t want anyone to feel like that.

But I also know the reality, and I want to help others make the right choice—to reach out for help when they feel they can’t handle it on their own. Thatis NOT weakness. That is investing in your own well-being and personal growth, and that right there is strength! No one truly knows what tomorrow will bring, and we just need to hold on and keep going. We all have the power to change, not just ourselves, but our situation; that power lies in the decisions we make.

I must let everyone know that this book has a few trigger warnings. This is not an easy story to read. It deals with self-harm, substance abuse, and sexual assault. In writing this book, I felt it necessary to pull a lot of inspiration from my own life in order to write it as authentically as absolutely possible.

I earned my psychology degree and worked in the mental health field for years, I’ve been to counseling a few times throughout my life, so I know how it is speaking to someone about these subject matters, and it helps tremendously to know that the person trying to help others cope has also lived through similar experiences as the one(s) still suffering. And though this book is not an autobiography, there are various scenes that were pulled straight out of my life. I took the real and weaved it with fiction to create a tapestry of agonizing emotional torment that ultimately leads to hope.  

We are all in this together. Life gets tough, so let’s be there for one another. If you know someone who is struggling with their mental health, reach out to them and let them know you’re there for them. Let them know you’ll listen. Sometimes that’s all any of us need—someone to listen. And if you’re the one who needs someone to listen, don’t be afraid or ashamed to reach out to someone and ask for help. It can literally save your life.

~Peace to All; You Are Not Alone~

Try Not to Die: By Your Own Hand: An Adult Interactive Adventure by Renee S. DeCamillis

“By Your Own Hand is a harrowing, disturbing, honest, deep-dive into all-too-real horrors ably demonstrating that the right choice isn’t always so easy to make. Renee DeCamillis pulls no punches and writes with integrity and a survivor’s hope and heart.” ~ Paul Tremblay, NYT bestselling author of Horror Movie and Cabin at the End of the World

When you’re your own worst enemy, survival is the hardest choice of all.

At 37, she thought she’d be stronger. But years of trauma, addiction, and self-doubt have left her broken. Every decision she makes could be her last—and you’re the one making them.

In this raw and emotionally charged entry in the Try Not to Die series, you’re in control of her fate. With six harrowing paths to darkness, only one leads to survival—and it demands brutal honesty, inner strength, and the will to keep going.

This isn’t horror for entertainment.
This is horror born of real pain.

It’s not just a book. It’s a fight for survival.

✅ Includes both the full interactive version
✅ And a Survivor Mode (non-interactive) for readers who prefer a linear experience

⚠️ CONTENT WARNING:
This book contains disturbing themes and graphic content, including:

Sexual assault

Substance abuse

Alcohol abuse

Self-harm

Reader discretion strongly advised. For mature audiences only.

“A beautiful, powerful, un-put-downable novel that dives deep into music, despair, literature, abuse, love, and — above all — hope. Read it, share it, read it again. You won’t be sorry. It just might save your life, or someone else’s.”
~ Elizabeth Hand, author of Generation Loss and A Haunting on the Hill

Purchase Links: 

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/try-not-to-die-renee-s-decamillis/1148146203?ean=9781961740464

Renee S. DeCamillis is a horror author and freelance editor, and the author of the psychological thriller/supernatural horror novella The Bone Cutters, book 1 in The Bone Cutters series, and Chisel the Bone, book 2 in the series. She also has a book forthcoming in 2025, a choose-your-own-path horror novel co-author project called Try Not to Die: By Your Own Hand. Renee’s short fiction appears in various anthologies: Phantoms from the Sky; Dethfest Confessions: The Devil’s Playlist; Horrors of the Deep; After the Burn; Wicked Women; and more.

Her poetry appears in the Horror Writers Association Poetry Showcase Vol. IV. She is a member of the Horror Writers Association, the New England Horror Writers, and the Horror Writers of Maine. Renee is the lead singer/songwriter and rhythm guitarist for the punk-metal band Scars Aligned, and she’s a tree-hugging hippie with a sharp metal edge. Renee earned her BA in psychology, earned her MFA in Popular Fiction Writing, and attended Berklee College of Music as a music business major with guitar as her principal instrument.

Renee is a former model, school rock band teacher, creative writing teacher, private guitar instructor, A&R rep for an indie record label, therapeutic mentor, psychological technician, and preschool teacher. She is also a former gravedigger; she can get rid of a body fast without leaving a trace, and she is not afraid to get her hands dirty. Renee lives in the woods of southern Maine with her husband, their son, and a house full of ghosts.

Links to Find Renée S. DeCamillis:

reneesdecamillis.com , https://bsky.app/profile/reneedecamillis.bsky.social , https://www.instagram.com/renee_s._decamillis/# , https://substack.com/@reneedec , www.facebook.com/ReneeDeCamillis/

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