An adult fantasy series

The Guardians

At the dawn of life, a goddess chose eight of the first animals to stand against the threats the world could not see. Half a billion years later, the eight are still here, hiding in plain sight as adjunct lecturers, homicide detectives, corporate VPs, rock stars, and gardeners who talk to trees.

Written by Ryan and Cecil Dewalt

Start with Book One See all the books

The series

The Guardians is anthropomorphic fantasy written for adults. The scope is cosmic and the register is domestic: gods and Greek salads, immortals arguing over a kitchen table about a wound two hundred million years old. The main arc is a quartet, and the world around it keeps growing.

The animals are taken seriously as animals. A ferret reads a room nose-first. A panther moves with panther weight. Species is character, not costume, and the eight who were chosen have had a very long time to become people.

Setting Zootopia, written for adults. The noir animal world of Blacksad.
Register Watership Down meets American Gods. Robert Repino's Mort(e). Redwall, grown up.

Content note. Adult fiction with upper-teen crossover appeal. Mature themes: grief, war, combat violence, some horror imagery. Intimacy is fade to black; nothing sexually explicit appears in the main novels.

The books

Book One Out now

Into the Nevertime

Fifteen years ago, Dahlia's aunt vanished. Her family grieved, planted a tree, and tried to move on. Dahlia was four. She never moved on.

A recurring dream, a stranger in a dark alley, and a photograph that shouldn't exist pull her into the hidden world of the Guardians. They tell her Erin isn't dead. She is trapped in the Nevertime, the land of the dead, and the only way out requires a living soul brave enough to walk in.

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Paperback 9798235389090 · Ebook 9798235848054

Book Two Out now

Into the Eternal

They got Erin's soul out of the land of the dead. And for months now, Nate has been hearing a voice.

For fifteen years, Kastagir called himself Nate. The amnesiac who woke up in a college dorm room without his memories became a real person, with friends and a life and a self that was grown rather than constructed. He knew something was wrong with him. He did not know it had a name. The seal is breaking, and when Kastagir is whole again, the question is whether there is room left inside him for Nate.

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Paperback 9798235153646 · Ebook 9798235952850

Companion collection Out now

The Side Stories

A collection that runs parallel to Into the Eternal: the quieter corners of the same world, and the people living in them while the war goes on somewhere over their heads.

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Ebook 9798235074750 · No paperback edition

Book Three Fall 2026

Into the Darknest

Ken is forty-four, and he has been preparing for this his entire adult life. Not a Guardian, not immortal, not invincible: the finest mortal sword alive, and still only a man.

The demon world has been building something in secret, and if it finishes, the math of the war changes for good. The only way to stop it is to cross over. Ken goes with his second at his side. Her name is Hrul. She is a sheep, she is thoroughly convinced she is a werewolf, and she is the most dangerous mortal woman on the planet. She does not know that last part yet.

Book Four Coming soon

Into the Aftermath

The book the other three have been walking toward. More when there is more to tell.

Beyond the quartet, the world keeps opening out: origin tales, character spin-offs, and companion novels already written or in development.

Ryan and Cecil Dewalt

Ryan and Cecil Dewalt are married, living with their kids in Central California, and they have been building this world together for nearly thirty years.

While Ryan writes the books, Cecil created the majority of the characters and much of the world they are in. Without his boundless creativity across three decades of stories and worldbuilding, the series would not be what it is.

Find the books, find the authors

Amazon author page
Into the Nevertime at every retailer
Into the Eternal at every retailer
The Side Stories at every retailer

For anything else, including rights, review copies, and library or bookseller inquiries: rdewalt@gmail.com