A contemporary review describes Olivia in India as a "happy book" and another commented: "To have read this book is to have met an extremely likeable personality in the author". This was to be the hallmark of all her fiction, gently humorous domestic dramas with little if any reference to political events or social change. Merren Strang, a character in Pink Sugar who writes novels similar to those of O. Douglas, describes her impulse to write "something very simple that would make pleasant reading - you see, there's nothing of Art for Art's sake about me". Merren later quotes one of her reviews, "'This is a book about good, gentle, scrupulous people who live on the bright side of life'", banteringly describing herself as circumscribed as a novelist by only having met decent people, and thus being unable to create convincing "ape and tiger sort of people" like the "strong novelists" of the day.