Strong Winds series allusion to Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series as well as other works, particularly R.L. Stevenson's "Treasure Island" and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Song of Hiawatha". Cassandra Jardine, reviewing for "The Daily Telegraph", wrote ""The Salt-Stained Book"... is not just a homage to the Swallows and Amazons stories. Donny and Anna, Jones's fictional characters, live in the contemporary world, escaping social workers, rather than pirates. There's far more emotion than in Ransome's books" but "they share the same confident, risk-taking spirit..." Amanda Craig, reviewing "The Salt-stained Book" for "The Times" "...wasn't sure about the historical framing device that gives the novel
Amazons (modern Don river), formerly called the Amazonian or Amazon () river, because the Amazons bathed themselves therein. The Amazons later moved to Themiscyra (speculated to be modern Terme, though no ruins exist) on the River Thermodon (the Terme river in northern Turkey). Plutarch mentions that the campaign(s) of Heracles and Theseus against the Amazons was at Euxine Sea (modern Black Sea). Homer tells that the Amazons were sought and found somewhere near Lycia. The Amazons were supposed to have founded many towns, amongst them Smyrna, Ephesus, Cyme, Myrina, Sinope, Paphos, Mitylene. At Patmos there was a place called Amazonium. Also,