Military Man's Journey Becomes Inspiration for Book

North Monterey County author Roger Huff knows what it’s like to be part of a military family. Before he spent 20 years in the Navy, Huff had spent his whole life growing up in the home of an Army soldier.

In the military, says Huff, “every three years normally you move, so the roots don’t go very deep.”

With his appreciation for men and women of service and their families, Huff decided to donate all the profits from his upcoming book to charitable organizations dedicated to helping the lives of veterans and military families.

“These kinds of organizations would have been useful when I was growing up,” said Huff.

This book, The Journey of the Lost Princess, is Huff’s seventh, and his first work of fiction.

The climactic moments of the novel take place in great part in the highlands of Peru around Machu Picchu. Decades ago, Huff serving a tour on a ship traveling around the islands of Micronesia, where came across a book called Ancient Civilizations of North America. That book provided the inspiration for Lost Princess.

“We were what you call permanently deployed,” he described, meaning they did not return to their home dock in Oakland. With pretty much nothing to do but read, Huff pored over every page of that book and became acquainted with South America’s native culture.

In Lost Princess, the main character starts off in the United States living a country life, heads to the big city, then starts on an adventure that takes her to ancient sites in South America. Along the way, many wild and silly things befall the protagonist.

“There’s a lot of humor in my books,” says Huff, and this is not hard to believe coming from a man who gives presentations on how to speak like a pirate based on his book titled Captain Bucko’s Nauti-Words Handbook.

You can hear Huff’s passion for supporting military families. He made sure to choose organizations where the funds would go directly to services, and not get lost on bureaucracy expenses. One of the organizations Huff sounded most excited about was “Paws for Purple Hearts,” a group that works with wounded soldiers who train guide dogs. Other organizations who will benefit from the sales of the novel include Fisher House Foundation, Armed Forces YMCA, Homes of Our Troops and the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund.