Introduction

Recommended by Adriana Trigiani on Jenna Bush Hager's Open Book with Jenna podcast

A Town & Country Must-Read Book of Summer 2025

When prize-winning reporter Sybilla Sumner checks into a monastery for a silent retreat, romance is the last thing on her mind. She plans to spend five meditative days surrounded by the beauty of the Shenandoah Valley—and apart from her famous husband and their crumbling marriage.

James Fitzmaurice-Kelly isn’t looking for romance either. He’s the Archbishop of Dublin, and has maintained a vow of celibacy for decades—even as he’s publicly questioned the church’s teachings. But as Sybilla and Fitz continue silently crossing paths, an undeniable charge builds between them, one that could see them abandoning their vows.

In this sophisticated, sexy, and soulful love story, novelist Sally Quinn explores the boundary between flesh and spirit, restraint and ecstasy, and asks what we’re willing to sacrifice in the name of passion.

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Excerpt

I recognized him the minute he got out of the car. He was taller than I’d expected. Tall and lanky with an easy, confident grace about him. His salt and pepper hair was thick and curled around the back of his neck. He wore dark glasses so I couldn’t see his eyes, but he cocked his head a bit to look around the property and I saw that firm jaw and half expectant smile on his lips. He was wearing jeans, a blue shirt, a light brown leather jacket, and loafers. Before the driver was able to hand over his hanging bag and satchel, he’d reached into the trunk, retrieved his luggage and a guitar case, and started toward the entrance of the retreat house.

Standing in the dining room, I tried to recall the names of the guests which were posted on the bulletin board in the entrance reception room along with their room numbers. I hadn’t seen his name. But then I wouldn’t have recognized it. On the sheet of paper with the names, mine read S. Sumner. Now I remembered. There was a J. Kelly. That’s all it had said. It did not say James Fitzmaurice-Kelly, Archbishop of Dublin.

I had noticed that J. Kelly had the room directly opposite mine. It was right next to the entrance of the lovely little private chapel which was attached to the retreat house. He was B7. I was B8. His room faced southeast overlooking the cow pastures and the Shenandoah mountains. My room faced southwest, overlooking the hills but also the road up to the main historic house and dormitories where the monks lived and the church services were held.

I filled my mug with tea, then waited, eyeing the U-shaped wooden table that was already set for dinner. I didn’t want to just run into him in the entryway. He wouldn’t know me and I would feel I had to introduce myself but I was already in silence and couldn’t talk. I slipped into the kitchen as he came through the front door. I could hear him as he walked to the bulletin board to find his name and room number on the list. There were also many instructions on the board, times of services throughout the day and night, times of meals, and a sign-up sheet for private counseling with one of the monks in residence. I heard the archbishop shift around as he was reading. I didn’t think he would recognize my name. As it turned out there were only about three or four other people attending. It would be a quiet week.

I waited until the same monk that had greeted me had welcomed His Grace into the front hall. The monk was sweet looking, much older, and balding, wearing a white habit and flip flops. Flush-faced and rotund, he was Friar Tuck in Robin Hood. Perfect. I hadn’t wanted the monk to carry my luggage either, and I watched as Fitz gently wrestled his leather handbag onto his own shoulder before going out to the hallway and down the stairs to the floor below.

I gave him about ten minutes before I followed him and approached my room. The doors were always unlocked. No keys. I quickly opened mine and collapsed on the bed. I was hot and tired from my afternoon walk, but more than that I was made deeply uncomfortable by his presence. I had come here to spend five days alone, to get away from my marriage, to try to make sense of my life, to pull myself together, to have privacy. And now he was here, and I didn’t know how to feel.

Excerpted from Silent Retreat: A Novel by Sally Quinn. Used with permission of the publisher, Subplot, an imprint of Amplify Publishing Group. Copyright © 2025 by Sally Quinn. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

From the publisher:

1. Silent Retreat is set at a weeklong silent retreat at a monastery in the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia. Would you ever go on a silent retreat? Why or why not?

2. In the book, James Fitzmaurice-Kelly (Fitz), the Archbishop of Dublin, writes a bestselling book arguing that Catholic priests’ vow of celibacy is hypocritical, unchristian, and keeps good men from becoming priests. Do you think a priest falling in love is sinful? Do you think the Catholic Church will ever question the wisdom of the vow of celibacy and let married men (or women) become priests?

3. Talk about Sybilla and Spraig’s marriage. What would you have done if you were in Sybilla’s situation?

4. Fitz tells Father John that he was profoundly affected by the mysticism of the Irish poet William Butler Yeats and the theologian Thomas Merton’s teachings on love. Sybilla discusses her and her Maman’s interest in psychics, tarot card readers, and mediums, and her research on the mythology of unicorns. Do you think these interests are contradictory to organized religion? Why or why not?

5. Discuss Dierdre and Fitz’s relationship, and also Sybilla and Fitz’s.

6. Fitz finds God in his music; Sybilla in the nature of the Greek island of Spetses. What practices or places in your life do you find spiritual?

7. Discuss the ending of the book. Where do you think Sybilla and Fitz will be in five years?

Weblinks

»	Sally Quinn's website
»	Profile in The Washingtonian
»	In Conversation with Maureen Down at Politics & Prose
»	Book Review in Air Mail

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