The Language of Flowers (novel) language of flowers—a long-forgotten and mysterious way of communication—with her firsthand knowledge of the travails of the foster-care system." For Weeks, the "novel is both enchanting and cruel, full of beauty and anger." "The New York Times" compared the novel to something "Dickens might have come up with, had Dickens been deeply interested in flower arranging." SFGate called the novel "an unexpectedly beautiful book about an ugly subject: children who grow up without families, and what becomes of them in the absence of unconditional love." Waltrous compares the novel to "Jane Eyre", identifying the novel as part of the "story
The Whirlpool (Jane Urquhart novel) experience of loss at such a young age shaped Urquhart's writing, particularly "The Whirlpool", whose protagonist, Fleda, is similarly a young widow. "I think the fact that Paul died when he did, when we were both so young, allowed me to remember what it was like to experience such a devastating loss early in life, as my characters do in this book," she explains. The Whirlpool (Jane Urquhart novel) The Whirlpool, originally published in Toronto by McClelland and Stewart in 1986, is Canadian author Jane Urquhart's first novel. It was subsequently published in the United Kingdom by Simon and Schuster,