Charnas has an unusual talent for portraying characters in late middle-age. Katja, the heroine of the first part of The Vampire Tapestry (1980) is memorable and Dorothea, a woman in perhaps her early sixties, is equally so.

Charnas's older characters have invariably lived full lives and, although they may be weather beaten and crotchety, have usually learned from their past mistakes. Her portrait of Ricky, a lifelong globe trotter and travel writer, a grasshopper who must finally come to terms with his responsibilities, is utterly believable, as is the tenderness of his developing relationship with Dorothea. Roberta and Blanca, the angry young Latinos who help shatter Dorothea's retreat, are also well developed, though some may find it difficult to share Dorothea's willingness to forgive them.