The Bookstore

Stories That Fight Back

The Bentley family donates proceeds from the sales of the fiction books in The Stronghold Series and other materials on this site to organizations actively involved in the rescue, recovery, rehabilitation, and restoration of human trafficking victims.

If you have a heart for those who suffer from human trafficking and would like to learn more about this growing epidemic or the organizations we have chosen to support, please explore the links provided below.

Thank you for anything and everything you can do to help us support this cause and these organizations.

Why This Series, Why This Cause

In the fictional town of South Point, Texas, the characters of The Stronghold Series wage war against supernatural forces that profit from human suffering. The spiritual warfare depicted in these pages — the strongholds of darkness, the battles for liberation — is an allegory drawn from a very real crisis unfolding across the globe every single day.

At the heart of the series, a miraculous event transforms a community. Out of that promise rises the Trinity of Hope — a facility whose blueprints seemed impossibly large until the truth came to light: ledgers, delivered at an unthinkable cost. A woman named Lupe laid down her life so that four young women could make it to freedom and ensure the records she had kept for years reached the hands of the church. Those ledgers exposed the staggering scale of trafficking hidden in plain sight. The question was no longer why so big? — it was how could it be big enough?

Author Eric N. Bentley's own missionary experience in Trinidad and Tobago opened his eyes to the devastating reach of trafficking networks. That encounter became the heartbeat of this series and the fuel behind its philanthropic mission.

Real Impact, Real Lives

Your support of The Stronghold Series directly funds five critical areas of the fight against human trafficking: Rescue — undercover investigations and law enforcement partnerships that bring victims to safety. Recovery — safe houses, trauma-informed counseling, and medical care. Rehabilitation — long-term therapeutic programs and holistic healing. Restoration — education, job training, and a genuine path to independence. Prevention — community outreach and missionary work that equips vulnerable populations to recognize and resist trafficking tactics.

Understanding the Crisis

Human trafficking, believed to be the third-largest criminal activity in the world, is a form of human slavery which must be addressed at the interagency level. It includes forced labor, domestic servitude, and commercial sex trafficking. It involves both U.S. citizens and foreigners alike, and has no demographic restrictions. Here in this country, people are being bought, sold, and smuggled — often beaten, starved, and forced to work with little or no pay.

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

"These stories are my weapon. If I can write a book that grips someone by the heart and then opens their eyes to what's happening in the real world — that's a chain broken. That's a stronghold torn down." — Eric N. Bentley, Author