Hopefully, the answer is whoever you damn well want to be. As women, we’re called on to be different people at different moments in time, shifting gears from day to day, minute to minute.

In my twenties, I was a writer at a glossy magazine—jetting from my desk overlooking Times Square to the fashion tents that were, at the time, in Bryant Park. In my thirties, I joined the corporate world as a working mother, travelling from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., Paris, London and Shanghai. Now in my forties, I’m embarking on a new career writing fiction—and I hope you’ll join me on the adventure.

My psychological thrillers offer a veneer of glamour—think of that lust-worthy, buttery-soft Birkin. But they also give you a birds-eye view inside the bag. Messy contents made all the more fascinating because we keep them hidden. A crumpled facial tissue reserved for one more use, leftover painkillers from last year’s dental surgery, an illicit phone number—the one you’re definitely planning to throw out eventually, your secret kill list (yeah, that escalated quickly).

My cast of characters includes first- and second-generation immigrants, refugees who recognize that beneath the suffocating success stories and “model minority” myths, lies a darker side. Many know all too well the trauma of war cannot be contained, seeping across generations and borders—even bleeding through the sleekest crocodile leather tote.