Chapter One Book Group
Chapter One is a community of friends committed to enriching our lives through shared experience of the written word and meaningful discussion. The group was established in January 2008 and is currently celebrating its eighteenth year.
Each month, Chapter One dives into a new book selected directly from group nominations. Selections can vary as much as our members.
The group continues to meet and celebrate literature each month in the Chillicothe area of Ohio.
May 2026
Remain by Nicholas Sparks with M. Night Shyamalan
Romance/Supernatural Fiction
Published in 2025
When New York architect Tate Donovan arrives in Cape Cod to design his best friend’s summer home, he is hoping to make a fresh start. Recently discharged from an upscale psychiatric facility where he was treated for acute depression, he is still wrestling with the pain of losing his beloved sister. Sylvia’s deathbed revelation – that she can see spirits who are still tethered to the living world, a gift that runs in their family – sits uneasily with Tate, who struggles to believe in more than what reason can explain. But when he takes up residence at a historic bed-and-breakfast on the Cape, he encounters a beautiful young woman named Wren who will challenge every assumption he has about his logical and controlled world.
Tate and Wren find themselves forging an immediate connection, one that neither has ever experienced before. But Tate gradually discovers that below the surface of Wren’s idyllic small-town life, hatred, jealousy and greed are festering, threatening their fragile relationship just as it begins to blossom. Tate realizes that in order to free Wren from an increasingly desperate fate, he will need to unearth the truth about her past before time runs out… a quest that will make him doubt whether we can ever believe the stories we tell about ourselves and the laws that govern our existence. Love – while transformative – can sometimes be frightening.
This meeting for discussion of Book #221 is currently scheduled for May 16 at 3 PM.
June 2026
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Fiction
Published in 1954
On a remote tropical island, far from the reach of civilization, a group of schoolboys find themselves suddenly, thrillingly alone. With no adults to govern them, they set about building a society of their own – electing leaders, establishing rules and clinging to the fragile hope of rescue. But as the days stretch on and the illusion of order begins to crack, fear takes root in the shadows of the jungle. What begins as a grand adventure slowly curdles into something darker, as the boys’ attempts at control give way to chaos, superstition and a growing, unspoken dread.
In Lord of the Flies, William Golding crafts a haunting allegory of human nature stripped bare, where the line between civilization and savagery proves perilously thin. With chilling precision, the novel charts the descent of innocence into brutality, asking what remains of morality when the structures that uphold it fall away. Both timeless and unsettling, it lingers as a stark reminder that the true “beast” may not lurk in the wilderness – but within us all.
This meeting for discussion of Book #222 is currently scheduled for June 13 at 5 PM.