Home for Christmas

Only one book a year can claim to be the schlockiest, most saccharine Christmas book, and this is it. Petey Pat Kane and Mariana Pelligrino have loved each other since the first grade, but a tragic prom night accident sends Kane running. He ends up a grunt in Iraq, where he’s killed—briefly—by a suicide bomber. While dead, he goes on a spiritual journey, meets God and learns that he is destined to be Mariana’s “lover and protector.” Back among the living, stubborn Petey’s reminded by his local priest what’s really important in life. The simplistic notions of the afterlife, spirituality and love are like something borrowed from a third-grade writing project. (Oct.)