Linda A Sanchez, It Ends with Him, (Legacy & Light Publishing 2025)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/245043356-it-ends-with-him
An emotional journey to find warmth after a cold childhood
Daniel has grown up with the pain of never being valued, never being loved. Yet his dad believes he was the abandoned one. This year, Daniel determines, things would change.
He has a great wife. Claire gives him space, she almost realises her silence compounds the hurt, but she doesn’t know how to heal it. And a great workmate. Jenna offers him acceptance and good advice. And a great sister. Bree is ready for some healing, too.
We travel Daniel’s journey of healing, from ‘feeling life was happening to him’ to deciding to move with it, to change himself. He opens up to his sister Bree and she to him. He lets Claire in. He backslides, but he doesn’t stay there, ‘strength taking shape around the wound’. He remembers that love means doing something just to make someone happy, ‘a simple act of care’. He ‘stop[s] waiting for closeness to find him’ and takes a step himself. He finally gets angry, puts the blame on his dad not himself, and it doesn’t break him. His dad ‘is who he is, and he (Daniel) get[s] to be someone different’. He ‘finally choose[s] to stop disappearing’.
The dialogue is very good, realistic and full of emotion.
Loved: ‘His father’s words. Rosa’s voice. Bree’s fear. Mark’s warning. Jenna’s kindness. Claire’s sadness.’
Studies in the US show that as many as 40% of children face the same struggle as Daniel, ‘lacking strong emotional bonds to parents’. As the author points out in her Author’s Note, this especially happens to boys, who are expected to be emotionally tough.
I toggled between thinking, ‘is this story big enough for a novel?’ and ‘is this is a novel that can teach us something socially valuable?’. We get the therapy-speak; we don’t get the blow-by-blow.
It’s quite heavy on paragraph after paragraph of Daniel’s emotional turmoil. Which I sympathised with, don’t get me wrong. I was there too; my father was a narcissist, literally incapable of empathy. I just kept wanting Daniel to get into ‘the dirt’, give us some juicy anecdotes, tell us about that horrible incident at Thanksgiving. Finally, Ch 19, we get one.
I look forward to checking out Sanchez’ ‘speculative, psychological suspense’ novels.
Susie Helme 
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