The year she got pregnant, María Oruña (Vigo, 1976) planned everything. She left her job at an international law firm because she worked too many hours and couldn't balance her personal and professional life, opened her own office, created a website, and wrote an essay on labor law with advice and guidance for people who might need it. She had planned to take a year to write that first book, but in the end, she only spent four months on it. And with the time she had left, she started writing something to entertain herself. That draft eventually became Puerto escondido (2015; Port Amagat, in the Catalan edition by Columna), the novel that catapulted her to become one of the best-selling authors in Spain. But the beginnings of a literary phenomenon are rarely easy or quick.

"There are remains of galleons here, but everything that could be used has been looted, with or without permission," says the writer. Maria Oruna (Vigo, 1976) while sailing under a leaden sky through the Vigo estuary, between Corbeiro and Rande, where the sea narrows. 300 years ago, during the War of Succession, in that same place the water swallowed dozens of frigates and galleons during the naval battle of Rande, one of the most remembered by the inhabitants of Vigo. The Anglo-Dutch coveted the full bellies of the Spanish galleons of the Indies Fleet that had just arrived from the New World, and the Spanish-French, without much success, tried to protect them. The sunken ghost ships there even inspired Jules Verne. In 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Captain Nemo travels the waters of the estuary to supply the Nautilus.