IN THE GREAT QUIET
spring 2026 from Lake Union
You can now add on your Goodreads!
On the Oklahoma prairie, even love is a dangerous adventure.
A cannon booms at high noon, and the race begins in the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1893.
Amid the crowd is Minnie Hoopes. Tenacious and fiercely independent, she is determined to endure the brutal frontier and create a life of her own. Guarding her solitude, she distances herself from bordering homesteaders and finds peace under the starry nights of the vast frontier. But this is outlaw country, and Minnie soon has the blood of two gunfighters on her hands. After a renegade outlaw named Stot discovers her secrets, she forms an unlikely friendship with him. With each passing season, Minnie’s past grows more haunting and threatens the future she has risked everything to build. Minnie raced into the Wild West alone, but her grandest adventure in the frontier wilderness will be to love a cowboy.
For readers of Cold Mountain and The Four Winds, In the Great Quiet is based on the true story of the author’s great-great-grandparents. This sweeping and transportive survival story explores a woman’s connection with the land, her reconciliation with the past, and her elemental search for home against all odds.
Settle in, I've stories to tell.
Amazon Bestseller!
Reader Review
a literary agent
I think you're
an incredible talent.
Minnie is a spectacular protag-onist, and her voice absolutely sings from the page. I'm so impressed with your character development and your talent for vivid imagery.
Reader Review
from Netgalley
This book was amazing from start to finish. From the very first chapter, I was completely pulled in and didn’t want to put it down. There’s such a quiet strength to the story — a softness wrapped in sorrow, hope, and healing. The author captures the ache of struggle so beautifully that it almost feels like you’re living it right alongside the characters. And yet, through all the pain, there’s this persistent thread of hope that reminds you how resilient the human heart can be.
The character growth was especially moving. Watching each person slowly find their way, stumble, and rise again felt so genuine and heartfelt. Nothing about their transform-ation felt rushed — it was tender, steady, and filled with emotion. By the end, I found myself both teary and comforted, as if I’d walked through some-thing sacred with them.
Laura Vogt’s writing has a peaceful rhythm to it — the kind that makes you want to slow down and savor every line. It’s one of those rare stories that stays with you long after you’ve closed the book, leaving you quieter, softer, and somehow more hopeful than before.
Cheshire Novel Prize
In the Great Quiet is ambitious and sets out a vision for itself that is compelling.
It evokes the place, the land and nature so beautifully, and Laura does it with incredible skill.
Catherine Cho,
author of Inferno and Dragonfly
Laura's agent
There are so many
lines that made me hold my breath.
It's beautiful - sweeping,
and Minnie is a dream protagonist.
Reader Review
from Netgalley
From the very first page this story had me mesmerised. The setting, the great land race of the 19th century west, in itself is interesting enough. Add characters, like Minnie and Lawman who are so full of personality and yet flawed, and you have the makings of a great story. What really pulled it all together for me was the writer's ability to capture the harshness of life, the loneliness and isolation. Her choice of words drew on all the readers senses. You could hear the wind whisper-ing through the grass-lands, feel the cracked sunbaked earth under-neath your feet and feel the harsh bite of the snow. And, by default, you understand how the landscape itself has the power to shape a character's journey.
Reader Review
a literary agent
Your book really knocked me over -- what a voice.
Reader Review
a literary agent
Where did you come from? How did you learn to write this way?
I cannot remember the last book I was so swept up in.
Reader Review
from Netgalley
A pioneer story I
absolutely devoured!
Loved the setting and loved the characters. Minnie is a great main character. She’s relatable and feisty and an empowered woman. This book had the perfect amount of action and adventure to keep me hooked till the last page.
Reader Review
an aqquisitions editor
Laura’s writing is stunning.
In the Great Quiet reminded me of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books I read over and over in childhood.
Reader Review
a literary agent
From the jump this is wildly propulsive and tightly knit.
You’ve got a knack for communicating the minutiae of the different aspects of the world that this occupies that brings everything to vivid and visceral life.
Reader Review
an acquisitions editor
I don't even like Westerns,
don't like survival stories--
but I was immediately captivated by Minnie's story.
I think Minnie and Stot's
love story is one readers
will be talking about.
Reader Review
from Netgalley
What a beautiful story of love, romance, determination and grit! I'm not normally a reader of Western historical fiction but I was intrigued by the blurb stating it was an "epic adventure of a woman haunted by secrets and searching for home." I love a female character who will blaze into the future and endure whatever happens, whatever the reason. Amelia "Minnie" Hoopes does just that.