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 to live on the borders of the Gargareans. There were two special months in the spring in which they would go up into the neighboring mountain which separates them and the Gargareans. The Gargareans also, in accordance with an ancient custom, would go there to offer sacrifice with the Amazons and also to have intercourse with them for the sake of begetting children. They did this in secrecy and darkness, any Gargareans at random with any Amazon, and after making them pregnant they would send them away. Any females that were born are retained by the Amazons themselves, but the