Trinity Book Group Selections
November 2025-October 2026

November 13, 2025:  Beyond That, The Sea, by Laura Spence-Ash

London 1940: Working-class parents Millie and Reginald Thompson make an impossible choice to send their eleven-year-old daughter to America to live with another family for the duration of the war. Bea easily becomes part of her new family and before she even realizes it, life with the well-off Gregorys feels more natural to her than the quiet, spare life with her own parents back in England. But when the war ends, she is called home. As she returns to post-war London, the memory of her American family stays with her, never fully letting her go, and always pulling on her heart as she tries to move on and pursue love and a life of her own.

December 11, 2025: The Dalai Lama’s Cat, by David Michie

Starving and pitiful, a mud-smeared kitten is rescued from the slums of New Delhi and transported to a life she could have never imagined. In a beautiful sanctuary overlooking the snow-capped Himalayas, she begins her new life as the Dalai Lama’s cat. Warmhearted, irreverent, and wise, this cat of many names opens a window to the inner sanctum of life in Dharamsala. A tiny spy observing the constant flow of private meetings between His Holiness and everyone from Hollywood celebrities to philanthropists to self-help authors, the Dalai Lama’s cat provides us with insights on how to find happiness and meaning in a busy, materialistic world. Her story will put a smile on the face of anyone who has been blessed by the kneading paws and bountiful purring of a cat.

January 8, 2026: The Keeper of Lost Things, by Ruth Hogan

Anthony Peardew rescues lost objects—the things others have dropped, misplaced, or accidentally left behind—and writing stories about them. Now, in the twilight of his life, Anthony worries that he has not fully discharged his duty to reconcile all the lost things with their owners. As the end nears, he bequeaths his secret life’s mission to his unsuspecting assistant, Laura, leaving her his house and its many lost treasures. Laura, in some ways, is one of Anthony’s lost things. But when she moves into his mansion, her life begins to change. She finds a new friends in the neighbor’s quirky daughter, Sunshine, and Freddy, the gardener. A delightful novel of “found family” with intriguing twists and turns.

February 12, 2026: The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell by Robert Dugoni

Sam Hill always saw the world through different eyes. Born with red pupils, he was called “Devil Boy” or Sam “Hell” by his classmates. Sam persevered, buoyed by his mother’s devout faith, his father’s practical wisdom, and his two other misfit friends. Sam believed it was God who sent Ernie Cantwell, the only African American kid in his class, to be the friend he so desperately needed. And that it was God’s idea for Mickie Kennedy to storm into Our Lady of Mercy like a tornado, uprooting every rule Sam had knew about boys and girls. Forty years later, Sam, a small-town eye doctor, is no longer certain anything was by design—especially not the tragedy that caused him to turn his back on his friends, his hometown, and the life he’d always known. Now, as he looks back on his life, Sam embarks on a journey that will take him halfway around the world.

March 12, 2026: Weyward, by Emilia Hart

2019: Under cover of darkness, Kate flees London for ramshackle Weyward Cottage, inherited from a great aunt she barely remembers. She begins to suspect that her great aunt had a secret. One that lurks in the bones of the cottage, hidden ever since the witch-hunts of the 17th century.

1619: Altha is awaiting trial for the murder of a local farmer who was stampeded to death by his herd. Unusual women have always been deemed dangerous, and as the evidence for witchcraft is set out against Altha, she knows it will take all of her powers to maintain her freedom.

1942: As World War II rages, Violet is trapped in her family's grand, crumbling estate. Straitjacketed by societal convention, she longs for the robust education her brother receives. The only traces Violet has are a locket bearing the initial W and the word “weyward” scratched into the baseboard of her bedroom.

April 9, 2026: Sipsworth, by Simon Van Booy

Following the deaths of her husband and son, Helen Cartwright returns to the English village of her childhood after living abroad for six decades. Her only wish is to die quickly and without fuss. Helen retreats into her home on Westminster Crescent, becoming a creature of routine and habit. Then, one cold autumn night, a chance encounter with an abandoned pet mouse on the street outside her house sets Helen on a surprising journey of friendship.  This novel is a reminder that there can be second chances. No matter what we have planned for ourselves, sometimes the world has plans of its own.

May 14, 2026: Parable of the Sower, by Octavia Butler

Written in 1993, this novel foretells of a world that is not difficult for us to imagine.

It is 2024, and the world is descending into madness and anarchy. Lauren Olamina and her family live in one of the only safe neighborhoods remaining on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Behind the walls of their defended enclave, Lauren’s preacher father and a handful of other citizens try to salvage what remains of a culture that has been destroyed by drugs, disease, war, and chronic water shortages. Lauren struggles with hyperempathy, a condition that makes her extraordinarily sensitive to the pain of others. When fire destroys their compound, Lauren is forced out into a world that is fraught with danger. With a handful of other refugees, Lauren must make her way north to safety, along the way conceiving a revolutionary idea that may mean salvation for all mankind.

June 11, 2026: Rules for Visiting, by Jessica Francis Kane

At forty, May Attaway is more at home with plants than people. Over the years, she's turned inward, finding pleasure in language, her work as a gardener, and keeping her neighbors at arm's length while keenly observing them. But when she is unexpectedly granted some leave from her job, May is inspired to reconnect with four once close friends. She knows they will never have a proper reunion, so she goes, one-by-one, to each of them. A student of the classics, May considers her journey a female Odyssey.

Ultimately, May learns that a best friend is someone who knows your story--and she inspires us all to master the art of visiting.

September 10, 2026: James, by Percival Everett

A brilliant reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—both harrowing and satirical—told from the enslaved Jim's point of view…When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, and to be separated from his wfe and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

October 8, 2026: Lucy by the Sea, by Elizabeth Strout

As a panicked world goes into lockdown, Lucy Barton is uprooted from her life in Manhattan and bundled away to a small town in Maine by her ex-husband and on-again, off-again friend, William. For the next several months, it's just Lucy, William, and their complex past together in a little house nestled against the moody, swirling sea.

At the heart of this story are the deep human connections that unite us even when we're apart--the pain of a beloved daughter's suffering, the emptiness that comes from the death of a loved one, the promise of a new friendship, and the comfort of an old, enduring love.