Composed Through Chaos

The Story That Found Its Voice

Book cover for 'Composed Through Chaos' by Kirsten O'Connor, featuring a woman with red hair wearing a denim jacket and headphones, standing outdoors against a blue sky with clouds.

Composed Through Chaos

A contemporary YA novel about finding your voice when silence feels safer.

Sixteen-year-old Kendel keeps her sleeves down, her head low, and her music turned up. Home is a place she can’t quite trust, and school is a stage where everyone’s acting like they have it together. Her plan? Stay invisible, survive, and wait for the future to start.

Then Aiden walks into the music room. He’s quiet, unpredictable, and somehow sees straight through her walls. What begins as an awkward partnership turns into a creative collision; a shared song that sparks a connection neither of them expected.

But as the melodies grow louder, so do the questions Kendel has spent years avoiding. To find her voice, she’ll have to risk using it; even if it changes everything.

Composed Through Chaos is a raw, poetic story about friendship, love, and the courage it takes to speak up. For readers who know what it’s like to carry untold stories, this is for you.

About the book

  • Scenic landscape with a large body of turquoise water, rolling green hills, and mountains in the background under an overcast sky.

    What you'll find inside

    In a house built on control, she learns freedom has its own soundtrack.

    This isn’t a story about having it all figured out.
    It’s about survival, secrets, and the quiet rebellion of finding your own voice.

    Told through the eyes of sixteen-year-old Kendel, Composed Through Chaos traces the spaces between silence and song; where control suffocates, music heals, and love becomes a lifeline.

    Inside, you’ll find a raw, unflinching look at what it means to risk being heard, and the courage it takes to play the first note.

  • A modern house situated on a hilly green landscape with snow-capped mountains in the background under a cloudy sky.

    Who is this for?

    For readers who love YA that’s real, raw, and refuses to sugarcoat life.
    Perfect for fans of The Fault in Our Stars, All the Bright Places, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and for anyone who’s ever felt trapped, unseen, or on the edge of something braver.

  • Modern wooden house with a large glass window, set against a mountainous landscape with dry grass and small trees in the foreground.

    A glimpse inside

    Excerpt: Off-Key

    He wasn’t her type; not that she had one, but if she did, it would be blonde, predictable, nice smiles, and no emotional chaos. People who came with instructions. People who coloured inside the lines. People she could map and read and never be disappointed by.

    Aiden was none of those things.
    He felt like a chord she didn’t know how to play; off-key, and somehow perfect.

  • Modern house with wooden exterior and stone steps leading to a patio, set in a landscape with green hills and snow-capped mountains in the background.

    Coming soon

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