Witch Week reference to Lowood School from Charlotte Brontë's "Jane Eyre", although in "Witch Week" the miserable conditions of the school are often used for comic effect. In almost every version of the book published, the class the story focuses on has a different name, according to the age group the publishers were aiming the book at the time. For instance: Early in 1992 the science fiction writer Orson Scott Card reviewed reissues of several Diana Wynne Jones novels. He wrote concerning "Witch Week": Thus it is that underneath what seems to be rather low comedy—brooms that demand to be taken riding
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,