House of Decay

by Boris Bacic

There’s something wrong with the house.
The road trip was meant to be a farewell. One last adventure before their friend leaves for college. But when a game of truth or dare leads them into the abandoned house across the road, the night turns into a fight for survival. The house isn’t empty. Something is inside. And it never allows its visitors to leave.

This book contains scenes of explicit violence, gore, and sexual content. Reader discretion is advised.

Genres: Horror, Audiobook, Adult Fiction, Thriller, Horror Thriller

256 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 15, 2025

Reviews

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do Not Explore Abandoned Homes!

Small backstory:

High school friends, Tyler, Caleb, and Quinn will be heading off to college so they decide to do one last road trip adventure together. The friends go down a lonesome dirt road just to see where it takes them and they find an old house that looks to be abandoned.

Tyler and Quinn dare Caleb to go inside the house and explore but when Caleb enters the home without returning Tyler and Quinn get worried so they enter the house as well to look for Caleb.

The friends find more than they bargained for inside the house as someone is home and they are not happy that three teenagers have entered their domain!

That is about all I can hand out with a small backstory so if you want to know more then go read this book!

Thoughts:

This book starts off with a bang and then continues at that speed throughout the entire book as when the teenage characters enter the house the author ratchets up the terror! The book has tons of extreme situations within the story and the book goes into gore overdrive as the author keeps kicking it up a notch!

This was my second book by this author and I really like his writing style as he pulls me into the story quick and keeps me there for the duration of the book. Looking forward to reading more books by this author in the future! Giving this book four "Gore Terror" stars!

[Paul Flint · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very scary and disturbing read that went in directions that I wasn't expecting. I highly recommend it, and everything by this author. He's that good. A full 5 stars. Read and be afraid.

[Doreen Fernandes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exploring abandoned mansions can be fun but some mansions have sinister secrets. A dare becomes a scare when a challenge to enter an abandoned mansion turns into a battle for survival. What is the threat that prevents people from leaving once they enter? A well crafted plot which highlights the eerie and nightmarish atmosphere of the mansion and its evil inhabitants. The ordeal of the victims sent shivers down my spine.

[cici cast · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s something seriously wrong with the house. And by wrong, I mean: nightmare fuel, blood-soaked fever dream, do-not-enter level wrong.

Tyler, Quinn, and Caleb are just three high school friends trying to squeeze in one last road trip before the real world (aka college) swallows them whole. But of course, because this is horror and teenagers have zero self-preservation instincts, they stumble across an abandoned house off a creepy dirt road and decide to play a little game of truth or dare.

Bad idea. A really, really bad idea.
Naturally, Caleb gets dared to go in first (because peer pressure is eternal), but when he doesn’t come back out? Tyler and Quinn follow. Cue: full-blown WHAT THE HELL IS EVEN HAPPENING mode.

🕯️ Tropes:
🏚️ Creepy Abandoned House
🔪 Friends Go In One by One (and regret it)
🎭 Captive Horror
🩸 Extreme Gore / Body Horror
🎲 Truth or Dare Gone Wrong
🧠 Psychological Terror with a side of WTF
💀 No One Is Safe

I listened to this on audio and WOW!! next level. Christian Leatherman and Rachel Perry absolutely nailed the narration. They brought every fear, every whisper, and every terrifying moment to life. The dread, the tension, the chaos, it hit even harder in audio. Honestly, it made the experience 10x more intense. Highly recommend the audiobook if you're brave enough.

Fast-paced, vicious, and soaked in dread. Bacic knows how to deliver relentless horror, and I was hooked from the start. If you're into savage survival horror with a ton of gore, this one's for you.

Big thank you to Boris Bacic and Podium Entertainment for the gifted audiobook! This was a wild ride I won’t forget any time soon (and maybe won’t recover from either). 💀🎧

[Brooke Rader · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received this audiobook from Podium Entertainment and releases on October 14, 2025. It was narrated by Christian Leatherman and Rachel Perry. They did an outstanding job with the audio. The way they carried fear, panic, survival with rawest emotion was a shattering performance.

I am quite a scary/horror fanatic, especially during spooky season. I got the opportunity to listen this audiobook early before it came out. This book was absolutely terrifying. From the first chapters all the way to the end. I feel like it is also a rare occurrence when I will rate a book scary, this one will absolutely not disappoint. IT WAS SCARY.

This would be classified as a horror.

This book has all the right things that make a scary book terrifying. This book includes dark vibes, a creepy antagonist, torture, pain, a great back story, a spooky mansion and just a couple of kids, and a harmless or deadly game or truth or dare.

The author did an astounding job with writing a scary story, that kept you on edge and terrified until the very last moments of the book.

[Martin Herrmann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Truth or Dare

So, this wasn't necessarily a bad read. It kept me turning the pages to find out how it all ended. The conclusion had a nice satisfying twist. I liked how the three friends talked about what their lives would be like ten years from then. Would they still be friends? Would they even be in contact with one another? I'd like to think they would still be friends. But life has a way of throwing curves. Especially for them.

[Ashley M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easily one of the top two of the scariest books I've ever read. The reason I gave it a 4/5 is because it felt like a lot of words in the book the author looked up a synonym and chose the most difficult looking one and chose that one. I actually had to pause several times and think huh? Maybe it was me? I'm not sure. WITH THAT SAID. I could feel myself in the book, could picture it, and it was terrifying. Amazing job!

[Angelique Diaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I went completely blind into this one and was not disappointed at all!
I thought it was going to be a typical haunted house story but instead it was a hell of a hunted one and in true Boris’ fashion, it was epic.
That twist at the end had me gasping and I love every single moment of it!

[Kristy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't even know what to say, like what did I read. It was good, gory, but good.

[Grace Wheeler · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought that the majority of the book was good and well written. However, I can't get past the monster and how that whole situation was working. Personally, I found it to be confusing and a bit too far fetched in a book that - for the most part - was believable.

[Louis (audiobookfanatic) · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5⭐️ (Review to come)

[Kate | Date With A Thriller · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great hide-and-seek horror read!! Gave allll the creepy and tense vibes!! 🙌

Also makes me not want to go in any strange basements!! Nope, find someone else to go down there! 🙅🏼‍♀️ And I will never accept a dare when playing truth or dare! In fact, I’m just not gonna play at all!! 😂

Highly recommend this one, especially if you want to be sitting on the edge of your seat the whole time! 👏

Thank you to Boris Bacic for the opportunity to read the eARC in exchange for my honest review!! ❤️

[Alexandra Nisneru · Rating 5 out of 5]

Boris Bacic doesn't cease to amaze me. He went beyond his comfort zone with this one and he didn't dissapoint at all. It was grim, full of gore and tense as hell from the first second they stepped into the house until the last second of the story.

[Emily Haynes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tyler Caleb and Quinn are spending a night hanging out before Caleb heads off to college. Their aimless driving leads to an old, decrepit looking house. A dare leads them inside. This house should never be entered. Something lurks inside, and it is not nice. Full of tension. It was an intense read with amazing characters.

[Skyler Zickefoose · Rating 3 out of 5]

very very similar to the movie don’t breathe…

[❤ArtfullySinful❤ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Because I saw the broken look in her eyes, heard her pleading for death.

With the looming scope of adulthood and colleges hanging above them, three friends would take an innocent road trip of smoking and drinking and find themselves facing the worst night of their lives. Quinn, Called and Tyler, friends for years who only wanted one last night before they began the best fhapters in their lives took on nore than they bargained for when they took a different dirt road this time. Face to face with an overwhelming abandoned house in the isolated woods, Quinn would dare Caleb to enter it and from there everything would go to Hell. Sneaking through a broken window, they give him several minutes of exploration before they themselves enter the house. Seeing the shock of countless items still left inside, it's almost like the prior owners can pick right back up from the day they left. Hearing thumps and cries, they followed them and came face to face with Rufus, the elderly man who's house this was. Angry and sadistic, he moved shockingly quickly and violently as he captured Caleb and locked him unconscious in one of the upstairs rooms. Chasing Tyler and Quinn, Tyler managed to evade capture while Quinn tumbled down a shoot leading her directly into the basement.

The dare. The fucking dare.

While navigating her way with a phone's flashlight, Quinn finds newspaper clippings dating back decades of the experimental IVF treatment that took place at Riverside Hospital. Rufus and his wife, desperate for a baby of their own to love unfortunately attended one of the experimental treatments that left his wife dead at childbirth and his son taken by the hospital due to his deformation. Unable to live with the loss of his wife and now his son, he set fire to the hospital and killed multiple patients and staff. Faking his own death in the fire, he escaped with his son Dominic and returned to their home in the woods. For years after he's held together with fear of somebody taking his son from him so he turns to drastic measures to avoid this complications. Anybody who enters faces a cruel and sadistic torture and death, the worst being young females. When Ethan and his girlfriend Gretchen entered to explore two years prior, they were terrified as Ethan was killed by strangulation right in front of her. Then, she was taken and raped repeatedly, producing two babies that Rufus took immediately. Through bad behavior, she's had both her legs amputated and most recently her wrist after she helped Tyler hide. Watching from the closet, he's filled with guilt and remorse watching as she takes this abuse to spare him.

This isn’t happening. This can’t possibly be happening. I’m stuck in a fucking nightmare. When the monster reaches me, I’ll wake up. I’ll wake up. I’ll wake up.

As Quinn fights her way from the monster that lurked in the basement, she's seeing firsthand all the death this house has held. Dozens of licenses, hundreds of bones, and the deformed son (Dominic) is becoming too much for her. As her phone battery continues to die, she knows she needs to get away now before her only source of light is eradicated. As she manages to make it to the first floor, she runs into Tyler and together start trying to escape. Cornered again, it's now Tyler's turn to face the monstrosity in the basement and Quinn will take Gretchen's place. Locked away with the corpse, she's forced to clean the room spotless before being shoved into an old yellow nightgown. Managing to find a revolver and bullets, Tyler injured the monster before he can make it back up. With the early morning fast approaching, he shoots Rufus in a non fatal location that left him bleeding but still alive. When he lets his son out of the basement, it's lights out for Quinn who is strangled to death in front of Tyler. Still traumatized after seeing Caleb so mutilating and tortured, he was the one to place that bullet into his close friend's skull. Seeing another friend die, he had his hand on the doorknob when he comes face to face with the feral children kept locked away. All the babies Rufus has gathered from the abducted woman. With no empathy or remorse, they would tear into him leaving no survivors in the house of hell.

“He did this to me,” she said. “Wanna know how?” Tyler shook his head, but the woman explained it anyway. “When I tried to run, he tied me down and chopped my legs off with an ax. I was awake the whole…” Her voice trailed, but she quickly composed herself. “My boyfriend and I thought this place was abandoned. We went inside because he wanted to see it, and… We didn’t… We couldn’t have known.”

[Stacey Markle · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a wild ride!
The prologue sets the stage for what's coming....but we really have no idea what is REALLY in store.
3 high school friends go on a last blast before life hits hard and they go their separate ways. They play a simple game of truth or dare, then make a terrible decision that sets them on a path of terror, death and destruction they couldn't imagine.
Each character gets their own POV and we're left hanging as each takes center stage. Every one of these POV's is terrifying, brutal and life changing.
What is in the house doesn't want to be found and no one gets out alive.
Listening to this on audio was a visceral experience. The narrators Rachel Perry and Christian Leatherman do a fantastic job of conveying the terror and absolute dread in every minute of each chapter. There were times I had to take a break! I was screaming with the horror I was listening to.
SO well done!!!

[Jim Donohue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Boris Bacic is one of those authors who never disapponts and, in his newest novel, House of Decay, he comes barrelling through the door with another 5 Star smash!
This one centers around three teenagers, Tyler, Caleb, and Quinn, who are the best of friends and have been for most of their lives. Now, Tyler is faced with Caleb and Quinn going away to college and breaking up that old gang of his.
Hoping for one more night together as a trio, before life gets in the way, Tyler recommends they head over to the old, decrepit house across town for some fun. Reluctantly, the other two agree, and when they drive up, drinking, getting high, they decide to play a game. As a result, on a dare, Caleb must break into the abandoned house, and do nothing more than step inside.
After all, the house is abandoned, right?
But, that doesn't mean it's empty.
When the other two follow Caleb, we are taking on a journey through a maze of Horror, where the worst possible things can happen.
And they do.
Bacic has hit another home run with House of Decay. The pacing, the atmosphere, and the creepy factor are all present and accounted for. And they are perfection.

[Matt Egan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don't go in the basement!

House Of Decay is a horror novel about a game of truth or dare gone horribly awry. Three teens enter what they believe to be an abandoned house to find it to be anything but. The 3 teens basically make every possible wrong choice and pay dearly for it. The book includes graphic violence and an extended scene of attempted sexual assault. The book is reminiscent of John Soul's early writings. Its not quite supernatural horror novel as much as a creature/survival horror book. The antagonist is completely malevolent and warped beyond comprehension, and his actions are horrific. 3/5 stars, recommended for fans of survival horror.

[Matthew Booth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Is the book scary? Yes.

It uses some really disturbing imagery and gets more and more descriptive of the main characters predicament as it goes on. That said, the plot completely falls apart, every character turns into an indestructible 80s action hero and there is repetition of the ‘he’s behind you’ trope.

There are no doubt lots of nods to ‘don’t breathe’ and ‘silent hill’ and I could see this being a straight to DVD movie released in the 90s but it doesn’t work as a book. The setting is limited and as a result the fast paced writing ventures into the unbelievable and farfetched.

Close but no cigar.

[AGilden · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will describe this as splatterpunk, with some of the grossest torture scenes you will ever read. But, unlike most books in the genre, the violence wasn't dished out just for the sake of grossing us out. I definitely felt that I had a relationship with the characters, and I cared about what would happen to them. The story is one of a house that no one can leave alive once they have entered it. And our characters do enter it on a dare. Predictably, all hell breaks loose inside, and you will have to find out for yourself what lives in the house and how they make sure no one can leave. The answer is utterly horrifying.

[Eden Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some parts of the book were predictable, but I did enjoy the overall story. The constant scenarios where you have a glimpse of hope that they may make it out of there. The ending, it was a bit unexpected, I didn’t realise there were still other children that have been in the house. A good way to end the book as it causes frustration and a whole lot of ‘what if’ or ‘what now’ especially because he was so close to leaving, even if he was the only one to survive. Happy that I read this, but wouldn’t reread it. Looking forward to reading other books by this author.

[Scott Lovelace · Rating 5 out of 5]

A road trip ghone terrifyingly wrong. Before three friends (Caleb, Tyler, and Quinn) head to college, they decide to take a road trip for old time sakes. The friends like to play truth or dare. Now the dare turns out to be a grave mistake. The group happens up an old seemingly abondoned house or rather mansion. Inside they find some extreme horrors. This was my first novel of Boris Bacic and it was a thoroughly fun genuinely scary story.

Thank you to Podium Entertainment for the ALC. Christian Leatherman and Rachel Perry deliver an incredible performance.

[Krystle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've never read a book gruesome enough to make my skin crawl and cringe... Well, this did it. I found myself looking away from the pages like you do while watching a movie; as if you don't want to see the horror that you know is coming, but really you do and keep watching/reading anyways.
To me, that makes this such a great book. You get lost in the suspense and forget to breathe sometimes.
Not for the weak of heart, but well worth the read.

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was okay! Definitely not what I was expecting at all, especially not with the intro and everything. I thought it was going to be a creepy haunted house story. I was pleasantly surprised though, by the actual plot, and it was definitely a rollercoaster ride. Some good gore, but after a bit it started to drag a little. The ending was good though! I'll definitely have to check out more of Boris Bacic in the future.

[William (Mr. Bill) Turner · Rating 5 out of 5]

House of Decay - you'll wish it was just a jump scare

Horror writer Boris Bacic always seems to have a twisted sense that he taps into with perfection. I should know by now that no matter how bad the scenario seems to be for the characters in his stories, there is always another level, another surprise. Jump scare does not adequately describe what happens to those who find themselves in the 'House of Decay'. - Mr.Bill

[Ronita · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book took me for a ride! What a great premise, 3 young friends stumble upon a decrepit house during some sort of road trip. A game of truth or dare is played and that game will change their lives forever, as one friend is dared to go inside and explore the abandoned home, his fate is changed for the worse right then and there. This story was amazing and as usual this author did not disappoint. Give this one a go, you’ll love it!

[Bree · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wanted to love this book bc it takes place in Oregon, but a couple chapters in and the location doesn’t matter. It’s the classic trope of characters making terrible decisions (running further into the labyrinth of the house, not checking to confirm the bad guy is dead, etc) with a not so mild flourish of torture porn. It was gross for the sake of being gross, which is great if you’re into rape and torture, but that’s a hard pass for me.

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommend, as an avid horror reader!

Seriously, this scared the fuck out of me! I just read the 3 book series about the Town That Shouldn't Exist...
I am a huge fan of Konworth, Ian Rob Wright, Strand, and all their consorts. While terrifying, there is satirical humor.

This author has no such tendencies...
'Unexpected' does not begin to convey what all other readers (will probably have to book extra sessions with their therapists) hopefully enjoy!!!

[Crissy · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOWZA! The last few books I’ve read have been long, slow burns. I needed something quick and dirty and this hit the spot! The book was fast paced from the jump and kept getting more and more intense! The author did a great job at pulling you into the house - seeing the horror, smelling the smells, and feeling the fear! The end was a surprising twist that I did NOT expect but very much appreciated! I can’t wait to read more from this author.