 Smith's second novel, "Catching Fire," was written in 1982 and is set in the world of the New York theater, with an anti-trade union political stance.Two years later, "Mindspell" was written to centre on the conflict between science versus religion, with Nolte Smith stating this fiction was written "to challenge strongly the belief in the occult".In 1985, just a year after her third novel, "Elegy for a Soprano" was written as a "roman a clef" inspired by Rand, Nathaniel Branden, and the circle around them.