The Guard: The Stories We Create
They welcome me to a place built to dismantle everything I believe.
A place where the last three years of my struggle mean nothing.
They lock me up.
This isn’t just any psych ward. It’s a prison for the rough cases. And I’m one of its thirteen inmates.
My mother calls it treatment. I call it betrayal.
I fought for my freedom and made peace with my past.
Now I have neither, trapped in a facility that pulses with wrongness.
They say it’s just my illness playing tricks on me.
They’re lying.
Something sinister is happening inside these walls. And no amount of gaslighting will shake that conviction.
Then there’s him. My nurse.
Calm. Gentle. Always watching.
He says he’s here to help. And I want to believe him.
But I shouldn’t trust him. And I definitely shouldn’t fall for him.
He’s dangerous. I can feel it, his presence both a comfort and a cage.
And the question pounds in my chest:
Is he my protector, or my warden?
Maybe both. Or maybe something worse.
One thing’s certain:
He is my guard.
Part urban fantasy, part mystery, and wholly addictive, this Upper YA romantic series begins in a locked psychiatric clinic and unfolds into a much bigger, darker world.
The first of five installments, The Guard sets the stage for a sweeping saga of supernatural powers, secret realms, and apocalyptic revelations.
This book makes you crave answers, haunting the reader with an excruciating slow-burn romance that stretches across all five books.
If you’re into messy emotions, twisted power dynamics, dry wit, and a heroine clawing for her sanity in a system designed to control her, get locked in with Seph White and follow her harrowing fight for truth and agency.
All while navigating a forbidden attraction to a man she can’t escape—
Her mysterious guard, who holds far too much power over her.
Tropes:
Slow burn
Morally gray love interest
Forced proximity
Power imbalance
Enemies to lovers–ish
Found family
All the angst
Low????, no smut in book 1.
Trigger warnings: gaslighting, institutional abuse, graphic violence, and power-imbalanced relationships.
Explicit Novel
- Fantasy
- Slow Burn Romance
- Morally Gray Love Interest
- Urban Fantasy
- Supernatural Mystery
- Found Family
- New Adult
- Young Adult
- Forced Proximity
- Romance
- Greek Mythology
simcec
My journey into writing began with a pest infestation.
Some authors have poetic origin stories—mine started with bugs.
After moving into a new house, we were greeted by an unexpected and very much non-rent-paying infestation of long-tailed paper silverfish. Hideously large creatures clung to every wall and contently munched the wallpaper.
It was a problem we had unknowingly inherited.
Or, as our exterminator—whom I got to know far too well over countless cups of coffee—put it: “We’ve never seen anything like this.”
There are some records you just don’t want to break.
Six months of daily battles and nightly hunting missions pushed me to the edge of insanity.
My usual creative outlet, drawing, was on hold—I couldn’t even hang my artwork because the little pests loved to hide behind it. Or worse—eat it.
With my main artistic hobby temporarily knocked out, I needed something to take my mind off the wallpaper, which I had started scanning obsessively for unwanted roommates.
So, I threw myself into a new creative project: writing.
Just like my husband told me 12 years ago when we first started dating: “I think you should write. That’s your calling.”
And what can I say? Two years and seven books later, I’m ready to publish my first series.
The silverfish are gone.
Writing stayed.
And it has become my passion, my peace of mind, and maybe the greatest gift I’ve given myself in a long time.
Well—aside from our sweet rescue pup, Poppy, who finally got to move in once the infestation was gone.
The Stories We Create
The Stories We Create consists of one book. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
