Author Talk & Book Signing: Steve Hayes "Light on Dark Water" May 20, 2013

Steve Hayes visits One More Page to chat about the paperback release of his debut novel "Light on Dark Water."

Corbett Hale knows the sea is inscrutable -- one day calm, the next a fury. But as he sets sail with a crew of three from the bay waters of the Chesapeake, heading to the Bahamas, Corbett cannot know what awaits them as he guides his beloved sloop, Gilead, into the Atlantic. Sailing south, he confronts haunted memories from a time he spent on another water, in another part of the world. Even as the violence of the sea tests his courage and skill as a sailor, he finds himself both drawn back into the turbulence of the Vietnam War and pulled forward into a struggle for survival.

"Light on Dark Water" tells the story not only of a battle for survival at sea, but of one man's fight with his own sense of incompleteness, anger, and remorse, as he attempts to come to terms with the raw interplay of loss and grace that is the essence of life itself.

A graduate of Dartmouth College and Georgetown University, Hayes grew up sailing on the Chesapeake Bay. He served as a naval officer in Vietnam for two years before beginning a civilian career in public and international affairs. Hayes, now retired, lives in Alexandria, Virginia.