Ray Greenland is an exemplary family man and Thames River pilot who cannavigate people safely in the here and now while his wife Lily in hercapacity as a direct... » 

Ray Greenland is an exemplary family man and Thames River pilot who cannavigate people safely in the here and now while his wife Lily in hercapacity as a director of a dating agency arranges their happy futures. Butwhat none of those around him know including Lily and their children is thatRays life is not his own he is mortgaged to a past that might at any timecome to claim him back. When Ray was twelve he did something so wrong he mustlive under a false identity for the rest of his life. He tries to atone byloving his family while protecting them against the pernicious truth tellingstories from other peoples happier lives and claiming them as his own. Theonly safe place for him is on the lower reaches of the Thames. But its on landwhere Rays past resurfaces and a lifetime of caution may not be enough to savehim. TEN SECONDS FROM THE SUN has the pace and hallmark of a classic tragedyreaching back into the mythology of childhood and revealing it as an avengingnemesis.Ray Greenland has a beautiful wife two lovely children a good job and a terrible secret... This is on one level a brilliant psychological thriller so tightly plotted that its hard to put down. But Celyn Jones achieves more than this. Beautifully and allusively written the novel is a twentyfirstcentury Great Expectations that touches on the idea of ruptured childhood innocence and the alarming fact that we may never really know the people we love... «