For author Sheryl Cornett's first novel, "No Secrets in This House," she sets her characters in a place familiar to her: Ocracoke Island, part of North Carolina's coastal Outer Banks region. Though not a native to the island, Cornett says she feels most at home there.
She refers to herself as a "dual citizen" ofSunset, h, and Hillsborough, North Carolina. She lives in Sunset roughly half of the year.
" That's a thing I get a lot: Why did you write about Ocracoke? You're not from there. You're an outsider," she said. "That's how they are, small towns. I feel that way about Lafayette in some ways — that I'll always be an outsider here. That's not a bad thing. People are very gracious."
AuthorSheryl Cornett
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Cornett, who taught English and Creative Writing at North Carolina State University for several years, started working on "No Secrets in This House" in 2016.
"It was a comfort thing for me to do because I love the island so much, and I'm never gonna get to live there. So I could dwell there in my brain," Cornett said.
The book, a romance and historical fiction novel, spans four wars, three generations and two continents— focusing on women who are nearly a century apart but tied to the same home on Ocracoke Island.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
The chapters in "No Secrets in This House" bounce from different characters' points of view, but they are also fairly short chapters— with 57 chapters total. What was your thought process in formatting the book that way?
I've done a lot of homework, taking apart books that I love. Thinking about modern readership and attention spans— talking to fellow readers and writers— the shorter chapters work better with our world that we live in.
You can read one chapter sitting in the doctor's waiting room or waiting for a friend to meet you for coffee. There's something to the structure of smaller chapters where audiobooks are concerned. And there is an audiobook in the works.
My thinking was reader friendliness.
From left to right, Christopher Cornett, Mike Maher, Chris Cornett, Jr., Shane Cornett, Grace Cornett and Sheryl Cornett.
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Would you consider yourself a teacher or author first? Or is there no line in the sand?
I would say they're dual vocations. They're symbiotic.
I've really learned a lot from teaching and from my students— their insights, their bravery, trying new things and their writing inspired me. Now I'm focused a little more on the full-time writing part and a little less teaching.
In the book, the weather is almost a character in and of itself. It tends to coincide with the characters' emotions. Was it a conscious decision to do that?
I wasn't consciously structuring the weather to be part of it, but I have spent a lot of time on this island, and it is a presence like another character. Everything revolves around the weather.
Louisiana is a hurricane zone, so anywhere that you live that vulnerable, that close to the sea, I think there is a demanding presence.
You mentioned feeling like an outsider in Ocracoke and Lafayette. There's mention of the character Avila being an outsider in the community on Ocracoke Island. Is that a reflection of your feelings?
I feel more at home on Ocracoke Island, even though it's not my hometown, than anywhere in the world. And I feel at home here in Sunset. My dad was a diplomat, and I moved around my whole life. It's like being a military dependent, or a child of military parents.
When you move around, you go to the next new place, and you're always the outsider. So how do you make yourself at home, regardless of how you're perceived by the community?
Sheryl Cornett and her husband Mike Maheron Ocracoke Island in North Carolina.
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And how do you, would you say?
On Ocracoke, I feel like I'm almost part of an expat community. I've been going for decades as a family vacation spot. It was not about me trying to write a book. That's where we went and built amazing memories and traditions with our kids.
I feel like I'm part of something that's more than the sum of its natives.
In a general sense, when someone is constantly moving or just moving to a new place, how can someone make themselves at home?
It's definitely through being part of a community, whether that's through your job, church or volunteering. I think it's giving back when we can and then building true friendships.
With all of the references to letters sent back and forth in the book, I noticed this sense of yearning. In pop culture right now, male yearning is a big topic of conversation. How do you think yearning has changed?
There is definitely yearning. I've not even identified that until you said that. Probably because I've been yearning for Ocracoke the whole time I was writing it. And I partly wrote it for myself so I could dwell there in my mind.
Culturally speaking, we love to yearn for something bigger than ourselves— and something much more than the sum of our little lives. In the book, Will is writing emails and doing Skype. So it could be our world of technology. People don't write snail mail the way they used to.
"No Secrets in This House" is available at,and other online retailers.