Nobody’s Mulligan by Brian Holt

Book Description:

Margaret Sullivan, a troubled college student in her early twenties, becomes a modern-day Joan of Arc when she is compelled to save humanity as the pinnacle of evil comes to seize what he believes was his in NOBODY’S MULLIGAN by Brian Holt.

Orphaned at childbirth and raised by her maternal grandparents, Margaret feels the sting of loss when her grandmother dies. With no maternal figure in her life to offer her comfort and guidance, Margaret becomes a borderline traumatic social recluse and is treated as an outcast, despite participating in admirable callings, and is left with her ailing grandfather, Paddy Sullivan. What she doesn’t realize is that evil is actively afoot and identifies her as an impediment to Satan’s global apocalyptic conquest.

Craig Templeton, an unmotivated, barely graduated gamer existing in his mother’s basement, seeks employment at a PR firm, assigned to the mailroom, which he perceives as corporate leprosy and beneath him given his freshly minted college degree. Templeton’s rust-relic of a car is the perfect prompt for Satan, as he sees Templeton ogling the high-end vehicles believing that he is already deserving of such amenities.

Drawn against their will into the town square on the night of the apocalypse arranged by a series of circumstances under Templeton’s influence, the citizens of Grace’s Parrish are confronted by the accumulated product of their own transgressions, and universal suffrage is served. Perplexed by her grandfather’s apparent immunity to Templeton’s will, Margaret ultimately realizes that faith will triumph over evil. The price is heavy, as the town seeks redemption from the only one who can grant it. With it comes a caveat that one detractor in the group will re-invite the apocalypse with increased severity.

Margaret’s heroism is handsomely rewarded as she ultimately finds transcendence that no mortal could deliver—a unification with the one person whose absence created an emotional abyss, as well as an explanation of her grandfather’s immunity to Satan’s will which is epic. And she ultimately finds her happily ever after with a love-match that is intriguingly coincidental!  The ending nicely sets the stage for the workings of a prequel.