"Guard Dogs and Microwaves: A Plain-Language Guide to Why We Love the Way We Do."

Guard Dogs and Microwaves: Microwaves, Stoves, and the Dogs They Choose — A Plain-Language Guide to Why We Love the Way We Do

If you've ever given everything in a relationship and wondered why it still fell apart — this book was written for you.

If you've ever met someone and felt that pull so fast, so certain, it had to be real — this book was written for you too.

Set on a single block in Houston, Texas, Guard Dogs and Microwaves follows a cast of neighbors whose love lives are as layered, messy, and deeply human as your own. At the center is Alana — a professional Black woman who keeps everything running, shows up for everyone, and is rarely seen for it. She is, in every sense, a Stove: steady, sustaining, reliable. The kind of woman who keeps the warmth on even when no one notices.

Her new neighbor, J.R., is something else entirely — calm, observant, protective. A Guard Dog. Not because he chose to be suspicious, but because his past taught him to pay attention when no one else did. Around them: Sierra, the Microwave friend who runs hot and fast and means every word of it — while it lasts. Tiana, caught up with a Street Dog who is always already looking toward the next horizon. And Mrs. Johnson, the elder neighbor who has seen every version of this story before.

Abbott Tellis uses five relationship archetypes — the Stove, the Microwave, the Guard Dog, the Street Dog, the Lapdog — not as boxes to put people in, but as mirrors. Because before you can change a pattern, you have to be able to see it.

Each of the book's 14 chapters unfolds like a story: real scenes, real conversations, real feeling. And then, at the end of every chapter, the "Plain Talk" section arrives — direct, no-fluff lessons that translate what just happened on the page into what might be happening in your life. No jargon. No lectures. Just honesty.

This is a book about the difference between intensity and care. Between being taken for granted and being chosen. Between a love that burns out in three weeks and one that quietly shows up for years. It is a book about what "safe" feels like in your body versus in theory — and why so many of us keep choosing the feeling over the fact.

Written for readers who are tired of advice that sounds good but explains nothing, Guard Dogs and Microwaves gives you language for the things you've always felt but couldn't name.

So which one are you — and which one do you keep choosing?

Pick it up. The Plain Talk is waiting.