"Forget disco balls. Forget bell-bottoms. Forget lava lamps and mood rings and pet rocks."

For Jeremy Hilary Jones, the '70s were all about survival.

Appalachian settings … fractured families … vulnerable children … Ursula Major is a quirky family saga in the vein of a reminiscence about a bullied youth struggling to keep his younger sister safe while their parents' marriage disintegrates.

"Take good care of your sister." This is the refrain Jeremy repeatedly hears growing up in a family of four in a small town on the Ohio River beginning in 1974, when Ursula—nicknamed "Ursie," his parents' Little Bear cub—is born. But his father abandons the family for salmon fishing in Alaska, and his mother turns to a snake-handling religious sect for spiritual comfort. From here, brother and sister navigate a series of challenges that culminate in the '80s with a brutal assault that bonds the siblings in a quest for revenge.

It all starts when Jeremy's mother gives birth to Ursie in the back of a bus. But psychological counseling has convinced Jeremy that his memory about this incident is faulty if not fabricated. And now as an adult reflecting on his adolescence, he is beginning to doubt the core truth of other life-changing episodes. As the grown-up version of Jeremy contemplates reality versus imagination, he can only wonder: "What matters more: objective truth or the relationships that endure, forged by trauma?" It's a question for the reader to ponder as well.

"Written so well that it is easy to suppose that it is a genuine piece of autobiography. Jeremy and Ursula both come across as believable characters. Their escapades, their interactions with peers and adults in their community, are all related with a mixture of humor and pathos that is a joy to read." — Frank Parker, Rosie Amber's Book Review Team

"A winner! Nails the combination of lyricism and readability. Ideal Book Club material. Conklin's signature is utterly convincing writing. The strange life of childhood is here and immediately recognizable, as Jeremy tells the story of growing up when you don't know the rules and are in the hands of adults with varying degrees of competence and maturity. School, church, small-town life, all combine to assault the trust of a child in the world around him, all told in language that is straightforward and beautiful." — Fiona Forsyth, Author, Poetic Justice

"The writing is beautiful, descriptive without going over the top, and it manages to place readers right in the center of the action, so that we experience events with all our senses, sharing what the narrator sees, hears, smells, tastes, and feels. The characters are fascinating and feel true to life." — Olga Núñez Miret, Just Olga, #TuesdayBookBlog, Rosie's Book Review Team

**"**Loved it!An intriguing exploration of nostalgia for a 1970s childhood, told by a most unreliable narrator.Conklin's is a persuasive voice and Jeremy's tales have an almost hypnotic quality, immersing the reader in the details of his lost childhood." — Elaine Graham-Leigh, Reedsy Discovery