Get ready to learn more about the book Within My Reach in this discussion with sapphic author Amy Blythe.
Join us for an exclusive peek behind the scenes as we quiz Amy Blythe about Within My Reach, writing, reading, and more.
This book is part of the New Zealand category in the 2026 IHS Reading Challenge.
Why did you write Within My Reach?
It’s a retelling of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, which is my favourite Austen novel, and I set it in the city where I grew up, so it’s a tad nostalgic for the beautiful Tāmaki-Makaurau (Auckland). But I was discovering my bisexuality at the time I wrote this, so a big part of why I wrote this book was to explore that – probably more significant than I realised at the time!
Who is your favorite character in the book?
Anna, the main character, always tries to do the right thing, to be helpful and resolve conflict, and I relate to that. She does get taken advantage of, and has to really find her gumption, her courage and self respect, which is a thrill to write.
What was the biggest challenge writing this book?
It’s retelling of a classic, so something of a balancing act between the source text and this new version, set in modern day Aotearoa New Zealand. The power dynamics and social norms have to be true to this setting. I suspect it’s more enjoyable to read if you know the original – you’ll pick up on lots of nods to Austen – but it has to work on its own as well. The daughter of a baronet gets talked out of marrying a poor sailor, even though she loves him. That doesn’t quite work now. My Anna can go get a job, have a bank account, travel independently. And my Frida isn’t at the mercy of the military – she’s an ambitious photojournalist, a risk taker, passionate and self-assured. Anna is a cautious, pragmatic teacher, preferring to wait, to learn, to double check before she leaps. Without the historical context to throw spanners in the works, their core conflict is more internal. Meanwhile, their chaotic families still throw plenty of spanners! Some things are timeless.
How did you come up with the title for your book?
Within My Reach is from the famous love letter at the end of Persuasion: “I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago…” This is after months spent in similar social circles, surrounded by people who have no idea the pair used to be in love. The longing and angst and SO CLOSE BUT NO is infuriating and brilliant at the same time. Within My Reach is all about the one you want being right there and yet completely unattainable.
If you’re planning a sequel, can you share a tiny bit about your plans for it?
I have a rough outline for a Sapphic retelling of Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South. Maybe this is the year it happens!
What is your writing process like?
I plot, and then I pants and replot. I write a fast first draft, total chaos, over six weeks or so, rejigging my outline when I get stuck, then go through and iron out the most obvious wrinkles, fix my (many) notes-to-self, often redo the first chapter completely… and then reach out to a couple of friends and readers for big picture feedback. Often there are still some big changes after this, cuts and additions, rearranging to get the pacing and tension just right. Then fine-tuning – balance thoughts and actions, dialogue and description, and nailing the voices. The only part I struggle with consistently is the waiting! Waiting for feedback and NOT TOUCHING THE THING is tricky. I have to switch focus to a different project or I just keep messing with it!
Where do you usually write, and what do you need in your writing space to help you stay focused?
I sit in an armchair with my feet up on a window seat, laptop on my knee and a view over the city. I’ll have a coffee and notebook on my right, my geriatric cat begging for pats on my left, and a yoga mat reminding me to stretch when I get up. Sometimes I relocate to the desk in my bedroom – roll top and ancient – if I need a change, and I regularly join other writers at the library for a bit of co-working and good company.
How do you celebrate when you finish your book?
Finishing the first draft – bubbly! And maybe a beach walk or the hot pools. A few days off from the book before I get into edits. Other stages aren’t as easy to mark, and I sometimes forget to celebrate – draft 2 and 3 morph together and nothing feels finished, and then it’s a frantic deadline dash, at the end of which I’m too frazzled to enjoy the celebration. Maybe I’ll get better at that.
What are three words that describe your personality?
Hopeful – more than one person has complained I’m too good at finding the silver lining. But hope is so integral to the romance genre – no matter how impossible it feels, we know the HEA will deliver in the end!
Earnest – or too bloody honest. I have zero poker face.
Proactive – I tend to get stuck in, try a thing, ready or not. It’s mix of impatience and creativity. I don’t want to hang around and wait till conditions are perfect, plus I’m used to the chaos of creating things and know that shitty first drafts are just part of the process. I’m confident we’ll muddle through. But there might be a fair bit of muddling 🫠
What is the most valuable piece of advice you’ve been given about writing, and by whom?
Finish the book. So many writers go back over chapter 1 repeatedly; they fine tune and rearrange and polish the first half of the project over years before they get the end written. Write the end! Then go back, now you know where you’re going, and edit with a fuller understanding of what the story needs. Until you have an ending (not just an outline of an ending), it’s impossible to get the start right.
What has helped or hindered you most when writing a book?
Writing community has been hugely helpful. Both for getting advice and for working alongside each other. I started a weekly write-in at the local library ten years ago and it’s still going! Hearing the person beside you typing away is the most gently motivating thing. Magic! And then there are critique groups and beta readers – much more difficult to set up and make work long term, but invaluable! And from either or both of those you get advice from authors with more/different experience – I go to the NZ Romance Writers conference most years, and I’m always blown away by peoples’ generosity, how much they’ll share with and encourage other writers. Particularly when I was self-publishing, feeling uncertain about all the different steps involved, it would have been totally overwhelming without that community.
When you’re writing an emotional or difficult scene, how do you set the mood?
I need quiet, no one else around, no distractions. If I’m struggling to get into it, I’ll journal ABOUT the scene, handwrite, brain dump my ideas, what I want to convey, what each character wants and fears, knows and doesn’t know… Then I usually land on a snippet of dialogue, and I’m away.
Have you ever hated one of your characters?
Ooh yes. The character we love to loathe! In Within My Reach, the father and brother are toxic masculinity dressed in expensive suits and drenched in entitlement. They’re vain, conceited and selfish. I’m doing my best to satirise a powerful white man with generational wealth, untouched by the consequences of his own actions. Jane Austen’s satire sets the bar bloody high, but it’s fun trying to reach it! The more nuanced sister and the ‘other woman’ character are also horribly flawed, but I have more sympathy for them – they’re products of their society, selfish because they think they have to be. They’ve been taken advantage of, and we can kind of see why they are the way they are. Definitely more challenging to write – for instance, the sister is always complaining, just constantly whining about something or someone, but she’s never taken seriously and, as often happens with women’s pain, her real needs are disregarded by her spouse, wider family, and even medical professionals. I want readers to feel for her, but at the same time, she treats her sister terribly. She’s culpable for the pain she causes, no less because she’s suffering herself.
What type of books do you enjoy reading the most?
I like the writing to be surprising, fresh and challenging – take me into a character and into an experience I haven’t lived before. If the characters ring true, go ahead and give me outlandish circumstances! I’ll accept insane plots if the voice and character are interesting. I read mostly m/f and f/f romance – contemporary romcoms and historicals are my favourites. I do love a good spec fic (Octavia E Butler, Andy Weir, Martha Wells) and will even forgo the romance for a strong premise, and again, characters I love. My favourite tropes, when they’re well handled, are second chance, friends to lovers, found family and fish out of water. Give me longing and misunderstandings and subtext for miles!
Are there any books or authors that inspired you to become a writer?
Marian Keyes nails the combination of satisfying romcoms with gritty real life. The Mystery of Mercy Close is my favourite of hers. The main character has clinical depression, so you’d think it’d be serious and dark, but Keyes is somehow wildly funny and her readers are in safe hands. I always wanted to write romance but my obsession with Marian Keyes and Jane Austen made me want to push myself to write stories that ring true – that say something difficult and important and real. And I think it only makes the romance more satisfying.
What books did you grow up reading?
Anne of Green Gables and Louisa May Alcott. It’s so interesting rereading these now, picking up on all the hints of neurodiversity and queerness they didn’t really have a language for. These books definitely have romance arcs, but they also have fully fleshed-out women, flawed and brilliant, courageous and curious.
