Wilmington and Topsail Island featured in new author’s debut novel

WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) – Nikki Brochetti left the world of television news in 2010 after working several years as a newscast producer at WECT-TV in Wilmington. Her husband’s military career took the family from their home in coastal Pender County to Maryland, where they have lived since then, raising their four daughters. Brochetti has now fulfilled an ambition by self-publishing her debut novel, Because of Winter, a historical mystery where the main character spends much of her time in Wilmington and on Topsail Island.

“My main character is a young woman who has lost her husband about two years prior, he was a Marine at Camp Lejeune,” Brochetti said. “He starts coming to her in dreams, revealing clues about this 200-year-old mystery that has torn his family apart. She kind of feels called to action, it kind of brings her back to life and gives her a mission. Part of the story takes place because she moves from Annapolis, Maryland, down to Topsail Island. Then, she spends some time in Wilmington. In addition to the dreams that she’s having, she also finds a book, and so there’s a book within the book and that is the historical mystery. She goes down there to try to figure out the mystery in Wilmington.”

Because of Winter is Brochetti’s second try at writing a novel. She says she did not take her first book, written around the time of her second daughter’s birth, through the editing or publishing processes. The decision to move forward with this project came, in part, after the sudden loss of her grandmother in 2021.

“I think writing has always been kind of a therapy for me, just to kind of get me through understanding, especially tough seasons,” she said. “So, when my grandma passed unexpectedly and she was a lifelong reader, we would always talk about books, I just felt like, you know, she would want me to write again.”

Brochetti said she did reach out to literary agents to try to get her book published but ultimately decided to publish it on her own. The number of self-published books has skyrocketed in the United States. After passing one million titles in 2017, authors self-published more than 2.6 million books in 2023, according to Bowker, which is the official agency for assigning International Standard Book Numbers in the United States. While wanting to inspire other would-be writers to follow their dreams, Brochetti advised that the undertaking is labor-intensive.

“I just encourage you if you have a story inside you, there’s never been a better time to get that story out there,” she said. “I am so grateful and thankful that you really can make it happen.”

“Expect a lot of work,” she continued, outlining some of the steps she took along the way. “It is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. You do have to expect you’re going to have to hire an editor. I did my book cover because I’ve long loved design, but usually most people hire a book cover artist. I put my book out to many beta readers, and I did an extensive edit based on them, and that also took another six months. So, you do need to go into it realizing this is going to be a lot of work, but what in life that’s worth it isn’t a lot of work, right?”

Brochetti has crafted a compelling series of events that are connected across dual timelines, incorporating the histories of both Wilmington and Annapolis, as her main character, Lorna works to solve the mystery and begin life without her husband. Along the way, the reader learns about long-lost family jewels, secret underground tunnels, hidden meeting places, and how the journey of seeking answers can often be more rewarding than the end result.

You can learn more about the author at NikkiBrochetti.com.

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