Identity & Belonging
The names we inherit, the histories withheld from us, and the difficult work of deciding who we will become.
The debut novel
The Name
They Gave Me
A Novel of Family and Reckoning
Some names are inherited. Others must be reclaimed.
01
The story
Love had rules.
Silence had weight.
Daniel Laroux grows up in a family shaped by shifting names, guarded memories, and truths no one is willing to speak aloud. He learns early that belonging can come with conditions—and that the questions closest to the heart are often the ones a family fears most.
The Air Force gives Daniel structure. Marriage promises shelter. Fatherhood gives him a reason to break the cycle. But the wounds of childhood follow him, and what was hidden, taken, and left unnamed refuses to stay buried.
Moving through East Texas and Louisiana, military life, courthouse hallways, and family tables, The Name They Gave Me is a story of survival, inheritance, and the courage required to return to one’s origins. It asks whether leaving is always a betrayal, whether love must be survived, and whether a name imposed upon us must be carried forever.
At the heart of the novel
Themes of family,
identity, and truth.
Family & Inheritance
How love, silence, hurt, and hope travel through generations—and what it means to interrupt the pattern.
Faith & Reckoning
The tension between belief and truth, forgiveness and accountability, and grace that must be chosen honestly.
Service & Structure
Military life offers Daniel order and purpose, even as the unanswered questions of home continue to follow him.
Resilience & Truth
Survival is only the beginning. Freedom arrives when what was hidden is finally named and faced.
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Print edition
Paperback
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Hardcover
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eBook
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A story that stays
with its readers.
Readers are responding to the novel’s emotional honesty, its portrait of family and identity, and Daniel’s hard-won journey toward truth.
“Daniel’s story is a moving journey of self-discovery.”
“A very heartfelt story that kept me engaged from start to finish.”
Read All Reviews on Amazon →“Beautifully written, relevant, and both heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time.”
Begin the story