Although there are no directly related tides to Le Divorce, Johnson often creates the character of a young woman unsure of how to cope with life. Isabel Walker is not as troubled as her counterparts in Burning (1971) and The Shadow Knows (1974), among others, but her uncertainties are kin to theirs.

Johnson is also known for using violent events as plot builders and pivot points in her novels. Almost a universal practice in Hollywood action films, and usual in genres such as the suspense novel and heroic fantasy, it is not so common among "literary" writers.

Johnson admits to unease about creating male protagonists and the males in all her novels are either secondary characters or entirely flat.