Most of Hall's books feature strong, independent young women. In the case of Denny, the young woman is shown as she acquires some inner strength, but by the book's end, she still has far to go before becoming truly independent. Flying Changes follows the pattern of most of Hall's novels by featuring a broken family. In the case of Flying Changes, the mother has been absent for many years; in the case of A Killing Freeze, the mother has long been dead; in the case of The Solitary, the mother has murdered the father; in other works, the protagonists must deal with similar sorts of dysfunctional families.