An Ordinary Man

While German bombs were falling on London people didn’t worry too much when hearing Hitler’s doodlebugs, the dreaded V1 flying bomb. But when the noise stopped then they were worried because they knew that the rocket was about to drop – on them!

David, hanging in a basket inside an air raid shelter, was oblivious to all of this for he was just a baby.

Growing up in West London he spoke with a cockney accent even though he wasn’t a true cockney. He went to a good school and later to an art college but not being impressed with the lifestyle of an artist or of an interior designer he left and got an ordinary job, His sporting interests included rowing with a club on the nearby River Thames and gaining instruction in the sport of judo but at the age of 18 he was looking for something more, an adventure.

He joined up for a three-year stint in a colonial police force in Southern Rhodesia and never looked back. He lost his cockney accent, learned a lot about police work and the native Rhodesians, both black and white, and his three-year stint turned into over ten.

Then using his police experience he started two successful private security companies, one in Rhodesia, the other in South Africa, and later emigrated to British Columbia in Canada where he started a third.

In 1984 he began working for the Canadian government, firstly in a security capacity and later in their commercial sector before taking early retirement on December 31st, 1999, and moving to the United States at the beginning of the new millennium.

Now in his fifth country of residence, he resurrected his artistic talents and began selling his art at various shows in the south-eastern United States. He also joined a local rowing club and within a few months was their manager and coach.

He has enjoyed many years of travel to over forty countries, has lived in five on three different continents and continues to live a healthy lifestyle which includes kayaking, cycling and plenty of walking.

An Extraordinary Man

In 1962, a naive young Londoner named Dick Starling embarks on what he believes will be a simple three-year stint in the British colonial police force of Warania, a peaceful yet fictitious country in central Africa. However, his adventure quickly takes a wild turn, filled with unexpected twists, romance, and thrilling escapades.

Amidst the escalating tensions of nationalization and demands for independence, Dick witnesses firsthand Warania’s descent into chaos. As terrorism surges and lawlessness spreads, his once manageable rural police station becomes a battleground against escalating crime and unrest.

From abductions to political intrigue, Dick’s journey through a transforming Africa is a rollercoaster of humor, heart, and gripping drama. As his three-year term reaches its dramatic conclusion, Dick faces a climactic finale that will leave him forever changed.

American Dysfunction: The Adventures of Scott

Scott Miller is a former professional wrestler who can’t seem to catch a break. After yet another layoff from the Union, Scott is at a loss for what to do next. Then, out of the blue, he gets a call from his old promoter at Mid-Atlantic Wrestling, asking him to put on the face paint for one last title shot.

Just as Scott begins to taste the glory he’s always chased, his dreams are shattered when he discovers his promoter’s deep gambling debt to a dangerous biker gang. Realizing the peril they’re all in, Scott rallies his fellow wrestlers to save their friend. Desperate and determined, they’ll stop at nothing to pay off the debt – even if it means robbing a bank.

American Dysfunction

Alex Walker just wants to find peace. Growing up in a dysfunctional blue-collar family, he learns to navigate life, carrying heavy emotional baggage from years of abuse and neglect.

Trouble follows Alex through the hills of suburban Philadelphia to a rural trade school, where he travels down a dark path.

While on probation, Alex joins a ragtag 90s cover band which teaches him that life doesn’t have to be so dramatic.

A Pangolin Slept on Buddha's Lap

"Writing Wild. Riveting fiction with a focus on conservation." Emmy Trivete, Milepost

When the deadliest threats to wildlife aren’t found in the wild…

From the endless plains of the Serengeti to the shadowy underbelly of Kathmandu, readers plunge into a world where science collides with the evils of human nature when a mission to save endangered pangolins lands a wildlife conservationist in a hornet’s nest of corruption.

Wolf Vandengetz had a dream job: studying majestic lion prides in Africa. Then, a promotion catapults him into a treacherous realm where he discovers that nature’s greatest predators aren’t found in the wild – they lurk in boardrooms, bedrooms, and back alleys.

Armed with a scientist’s knowledge but unprepared for the cutthroat politics of NGOs, or the ruthless methods of animal traffickers, Wolf is fighting for more than just the pangolins’ survival. On an adventure beset with unpredictable twists, he solves complex ecosystem mysteries and unravels a web of corruption that stretches from local poachers to global policy-makers. When the stakes skyrocket, it’s no longer just about saving a species – it’s about exposing the human greed that jeopardizes the delicate balance of nature.

The pangolin’s plight unfolds as a heart-pounding journey. Will Wolf clear his name and chart a new path for wildlife conservation, or will he, like the pangolin, become another casualty in the war against nature?

7 Russell Hill Road

7 Russell Hill Road is a multi-generational story of humble beginnings in France, a camp in Germany after World War II, rural Jamaica, Vietnam, Sweden, USA, and an old farm north of Toronto, Canada.

By 2007, through sheer circumstance, the individuals of the culturally and racially diverse Canadian family eventually find themselves living on a leafy street in an upscale neighborhood in Toronto, Canada.

The central character, a Supreme Court justice, is hiding from life within the Canadian Witness Protection Program. He meets a single woman who has knocked around the world her whole life without attachments and who is quite unable to form them.

Their crippling trust issues force them to choose the wrong fork in the road, time and time again.

49 Parkwood Avenue

49 Parkwood Avenue is the second book in the series of a Toronto, Canada, immigrant family saga. By 2008, the multi-generational members of this growing family still find themselves mired in the ups and downs of life in a complicated, diverse family structure.

The central character, Nigella Hansson, is introduced to the reader as a baby born in 1975 to a single parent, who was a profoundly deaf woman who grew up in a Swedish orphanage. Armed with the experience of being brought up on welfare and many meals that came from the back door of restaurants at closing time, our protagonist earns a scholarship and graduates with a law degree. 

She finds her birth father at the age of thirty and embarks on a new life with a five-year-old daughter in tow. She turns her back on her law degree and decides to grab all life has to offer on her own terms, come hell or high water.  

Learn more at sandrabenns.com

375th Personnel Recovery Detachment, Balkans

In 1944, American second lieutenant John Gorham Westfall receives a daring mission: under the cover identity ‘375th Personnel Recovery Detachment, Balkans,’ he is to parachute into Yugoslavia and extract shot-down American pilots. His orders are stark: ‘This is a war of no morality… Do what it takes. Get our boys out. Methods are immaterial. Morals schmorals.’

Soon, Westfall faces a harrowing conflict between his mission and his ethics. High winds force him to land amidst the communist-led Partisans instead of his intended allies. Now, navigating through a landscape ravaged by constant German attacks, he must tread carefully, avoiding entanglement in the brutal Yugoslav civil war.

Amid the chaos, Westfall is instructed to avoid romantic entanglements. But in a rain-soaked forest, while fleeing from German forces, he encounters the tall, captivating ‘Comrade Jadranka,’ a fellow 23-year-old and translator for the Partisan high command. As danger looms and loyalties are tested, Westfall’s resolve is pushed to its limits in a mission where survival and morality are constantly at odds.