Amy Blythe’s debut with Harlequin, Emergency Room Reunion, caught the eye of Harlequin Medical Romance editors when she submitted it through Harlequin.Submittable.com. A member of the Romance Writers of New Zealand, she teaches high school by day and writes whenever she gets the chance. We’re so glad that she does – congratulations Amy!
Harlequin: Tell us about yourself. Our readers want to know!
Amy Blythe: Kia ora! I’m Amy. I live with my husband and two teenagers in Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand. Whether I’m teaching or not, I spend my days reading and writing and talking and editing, rinse and repeat. It’s all words! I love how a few squiggles on a page can elicit emotion, can move people to think and feel and do things. It’s like magic.
Bookish pursuits aside, I love the beach, playing board games with my husband (Ark Nova is our current favorite), and all things theatrical, be it musicals, poetry open-mics, or anything in between. Living in Hong Kong as a child was really significant for me, blowing my world wide open. More recently I spent three years in Paris. I love to learn and travel and read and explore this brilliant, diverse world we live in, and I feel very lucky that I’ve seen a few weird and wonderful places beyond the beautiful country I live in.
H: What led you to becoming a romance writer?
AB: I’ve been writing since before I could hold a pen, always telling stories one way or another, but the first novel-length story I finished was Pride and Prejudice fanfiction. I had a high school English teacher who set a Romance assignment – we had to read a “classic” and a Mills & Boon romance. I’d read loads of classics, but that was my first taste of category romance. Delicious!
My mum is a lab technologist in hematology, and one of our shared loves has always been medical dramas. ER was my favourite (there’s also some very cringey ER fanfiction I wrote out there somewhere). It was always the romance for me, no matter the genre; I keep coming back for the slow-burn, the second-chance, the forbidden longing… I cannot get enough.
H: What were the big steps in your journey to becoming a published author?
AB: Finding other writers was really important for me—and not just for me! I think this is probably true for all writers. I was a part of the nanowrimo group in Christchurch, and then I moved to Paris and joined the ‘Other Writers Group’ which met at Shakespeare and Company bookshop. A few of us regulars formed a side-group to work regularly on long-form projects, and from that I received invaluable feedback on so many drafts – they saw early versions of almost everything I’ve published since.
Returning to Aotearoa, I was on the hunt for a similar community and eventually found the Romance Writers of New Zealand. I had a few encouraging accolades in their competitions with my regency romances (unpublished) and romcoms (self-published). Teaching full-time and being a mum means most of the battle for me to write is finding (or fighting for) time.
I started publishing my romantic comedies in 2020 and have now wrapped up my Have Heart, Will Travel series. A couple of my friends write for Harlequin’s medical line (shout out Alison Roberts and JC Harroway), and I love their books, so I thought I’d give it a go!
H: What advice would you offer aspiring writers?
AB: If you do the writing, it’s not “aspiring”. So, in short, write. Then write the next book. So many writers spend years on that first novel. They hold that one book so tight and have been over it so many times.
Write the next book! Not only does it mean you have a second book, it’s also a better book – guarantee it. All that stuff you learned writing the first book, it’s much easier to apply it to a whole new story. And more books = better for so many reasons, but a key one for me is that I can hold them a little less tightly. I can make the necessary edits. I can take risks. My whole life (creatively) doesn’t hang in the balance with that one story. The more I write, the more I trust myself and can enjoy playing with ideas and characters and language. The more I write, the more I can let go of the things I cannot control, and in this business, there are so many things beyond an author’s control.
The other thing is to find other writers. Whether they’re romance writers or not, other writers will keep you going. They will celebrate with you, commiserate with you, drink with you, share their knowledge, and you’ll share yours, too. Be open to learn, humble and generous, and show up. If you show up, you get to be a part of things. I’m in a few writing communities now, and it’s a glorious, chaotic symbiosis that keeps me alive.
H: What did you do when you got the call from Harlequin?
AB: Weirdly, I was in New York City on a school trip. I’ve traveled a bit, but this was my first time as teacher-in-charge, carrying all the responsibility. I was horribly jet-lagged, and it was the end of a massive day—Statue of Liberty, United Nations, The Great Gatsby musical! I’m pretty sure the whole thing was some kind of sleep-deprived hallucination. We were staying at the YMCA, just half a block from Central Park, it was the middle of the night, and the call was an email. I laughed out loud in my sad little single room and then told my husband via messenger because he was in wildly different time zone. Thank goodness for melatonin or I’d be dead now. The next morning, I had to get on doing school trip things like nothing had really changed.
I wasn’t back in New Zealand for two weeks, so we planned a video call for after I’d recovered from all the long-haul flights (but it still didn’t feel real).
(Still doesn’t, if I’m honest.)
Now let’s hear from the editor, Elena Lodge!
From the very first pages, I could tell that Amy got medical romance. Not only had she nailed the intensity of an ER setting, but she’d also captured all the best bits of a second chance story. With a shared past and undeniable chemistry, it was infinitely satisfying to follow loving (and lovable!) Sorin and no-nonsense Neroli as they found their happily-ever-after.
Amy’s sparky voice and charming characters will no doubt capture the hearts of our readers, and I can’t wait to see her shine here at Harlequin Medical Romance!
