In addition to being published in New Zealand and the United Kingdom, Meg and Sole Survivor were also published in the United States by St Martin's Press, in 1981 and 1983 respectively. Kirkus Reviews noted the difficulty in reviewing Meg when Plumb had not been published in the United States, but said the reader would "slowly warm" to the story, especially to Meg, and that it was "far more subtle and thoughtful than most family sagas". It said of Sole Survivor that "Gee comes across as a gently unsentimental, especially economical observer of lives ... with a clear-headed realism about human motive that's steadily appealing and frequently even moving". Michael Leapman in the New York Times was less impressed, saying that to appreciate Sole Survivor a reader would have to have "a familiarity with New Zealand politics since 1950 and a taste for the sordid".
