After her shift in the 1870s to writing more non-fiction works, Harland continued to explore contemporary issues of women in her occasional novels and short stories. Some of her best-known works in this period included "The Hidden Path" and "Sunnybank". While other of her novels she wrote during this time were criticized for lacking believability and drawing out the heroine's suffering, Terhune is considered always to have "told a good story". Her first fourteen novels were reprinted and continued to be top sellers well after her own death in the early twentieth century.