Books
E. M. Williams's Books on Goodreads
Chaos Calling (The Xenthian Cycle, #1)
Reviews: 23
Ratings: 51 (avg rating 4.65)
Chaos Calling
The Xenthian Cycle: Book I
What if you were on stand-by for the end of the world–and you didn’t know?
Anna Lin is done with crying. Her mother has died and her father’s refusing to deal with, well, anything. Her brother Jason, an emergency physician in Vancouver, has long since checked out.
Meanwhile, caring for her mother’s decline and sorting out her estate has iced Anna’s realty career. The bills are piling up. The kids are out of school for the summer. And her husband, Malcolm, is running out of patience.
Beyond frustration, Anna hears raccoons in her Toronto garage late one night. But no neighbourhood pest awaits her.
For the first time in two millennia, mysterious creatures have returned to our world to hunt us. As the strange attacks increase, Anna realizes that she, Jason, and Dave LaRoque Montcalm, a recovering startup CEO and their best friend from childhood, hold the keys to defending their city and the world—if she can convince them to join her.
* * *
Chaos Calling was named an Amazon Hot New Release in Contemporary Fantasy the week it became available for pre-order (April 19) and has remained in the Top 100.
Content advisory: This novel includes significant monster violence. It touches on mental health (including depression, anxiety, grief, sudden loss, and suicide), elder care, breast cancer, police and military violence (particularly against Indigenous people), and Canada’s living legacy as a colonial state, including the Sixties Scoop and residential schools, and the ongoing impact of both of these government policies on Indigenous people.
About My Writing Process
Before the pandemic happened, I wrote the majority of Chaos Calling on my phone using Wattpad during my subway commute. As authors like Karma Brown have observed, you can make a lot of progress on a creative project by dedicating an hour or so to writing each day.
I’ve written about what it was like to write my first draft on Medium. As it happens, that manuscript turned out to be a highlight reel for the whole series smushed up into one book.
It’s been through six major drafts over seven and a half years. I finished the last three drafts between May 2020 and March 2022 while living under semi-permanent quarantine restrictions in Toronto. These revisions also included professional structural, sensitivity, line, copy, and proofreading edits.
I remain grateful to the Wattpad team for their platform. Composing three drafts of my book on my phone was a beautiful and productive experience. Without it, Chaos Calling likely wouldn’t exist.
Coming soon
Chaos Armor: Book II of The Xenthian Cycle
What can you share about Chaos Armor?
I didn’t set out to write a series. At first, I believed the book that became The Xenthian Cycle would be a single novel. Then it was a trilogy. Now, it’s likely five books.
Consequently, Books I and II spent several years as one story. My structural/line editor talked me into splitting them when we were working on the manuscript that evolved into Chaos Calling.
What does that mean for Chaos Armor? Well, it’s already been through several drafts and edits with my beta readers. I finished the structural edits in late 2023. It’s currently undergoing the manuscript production process.
It’s too early to know my publication date. When I have one, I’ll post it here. Want to be sure you don’t miss the announcement? Subscribe to my email list!
Into the Fishpond
A romantasy action fan fiction novel that remixes the Nintendo Switch Game* as a Golden Route
I love video games and have since childhood. But for a lot of reasons, it took me a long time to read or write fan fiction (backstory).
In 2024, I rewrote Fire Emblem: Three Houses as a romantasy action novel (watch the pitch reel). The story combines my love of magical twins with plenty of sibling nonsense, fast-paced battle scenes, many dragons, and hot elves who have no right to look that good in plate mail.
Into the Fishpond: A Three Houses Alliance is the story of Zara, who has just finished playing Fire Emblem: Three Houses for the fourth time (Silver Snow route). She’s devastated that she can’t save all the characters she’s grown to love.
Fortunately, the Goddess Sothis appears and offers her the chance of a lifetime — to travel to Fódlan and help Byleth Eisner save all the students from death while defeating the Agarthans, their true enemy.
The moment she consents, Sothis shoves Zara into Byleth’s unoccupied female body (they are male presenting in this timeline) and tosses her into the fishpond at Garreg Mach while dressed as the Goddess herself.
Seteth, head of the Officer’s Academy and Archbishop Rhea’s right hand, rescues her and is immediately suspicious. And, since neither Byleth nor Jeralt Eisner claim any knowledge of this mystery woman, he’s pretty certain that Zara is a liar and a fake, despite their intense mutual attraction.
If Zara ever wants to see her home again, she must work with Byleth to navigate the increasingly dangerous monastery, keep secrets, build relationships, and fulfill her promises.
If you know FE3H well, Fishpond is loosely Setleth fan fiction. It was written on an Archive of Our Own (AO3) and you can still read it there.
I’m working on a free ebook edition with a few extra scenes. It’ll be ready in 2025.
Subscribe to my newsletter for updates about this project!
* As with all fan fiction projects, I don’t own the rights to this story, these characters or this world. All of my Fishpond work will always be free.
Also, for the same reason, this story has not been professionally edited. You may find small errors. I do my best to fix them as I go.
When's the next book coming out?
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