You spend so much of your life believing that your worth depends on meeting those expectations, and when you cannot, through no fault of your own, you begin to believe you are the failure.

The Calamity Club is set in Oxford, Mississippi, in 1933, with the Great Depression pressing down on everyone, rich and poor alike. The story follows three women whose lives end up tied together. At a moment when far-right and authoritarian politics are gaining real ground across the West, a book about women being underestimated, controlled and written off is not simply a story about the past.

I think moving countries as a child changes you forever. Not always in dramatic ways. Sometimes it just quietly teaches you that life can change very quickly, that people disappear, that home can become a very flexible concept, and that you learn to adapt before you even fully understand what adapting means. Maybe that’s also why I’ve spent so much of my adult life saying yes to things before feeling ready for them. I was born in Colombia and moved to Spain when I was nine years old. My mum...