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IN THE GREAT QUIET
out now in print, audiobook, and ebook from Lake Union
Over 1,200 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
ratings on Goodreads,
before launch day.
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.
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.
#1 Amazon Bestseller!
here's what readers are saying:
Sara Maurer
author of A Good Animal
BOOK OF THE MONTH pick
The voice of the feminine echos throughout In the Great Quiet. Minnie herself, as she rides and plants and builds, is often greeted by the voices of women who have gone before her. Laura gives the earth herself voice to speak.
I was taken in by Laura’s intimate knowledge of plant life, horse husbandry, and natural history, even the use of medicinal herbs. All this lends such authenticity and credibility to the text. Readers will feel her deep connection to the setting.
Still, it’s the push and pull between Minnie and her next door neighbor that ultimately moves the narrative along. Minnie and Stot are equal parts antisocial and big heart and sheer will, and this reader couldn’t hep but root for them. Laura has a talent for capturing chemistry.
Settle in, Laura has stories to tell.
Heba Al-Wasity
#1 bestselling author of Weavingshaw
Instant SUNDAY TIMES bestseller
Exactly the kind of book that I love: beautifully written, decadent, every word a masterpiece.
This book deserves to be shouted about. I am savoring every sentence, and I will love it to my dying breath.
Rae Giana Rashad
PEN Award finalist and
Goodreads Choice Award nominee
of The Blueprint
I was struck by the confidence & tenderness of Laura Vogt's writing. Minnie Hoopes is a woman learning how to belong to herself, and the land run becomes a powerful backdrop for that trans-formation. In the Great Quiet understands how lonely and brave it can be to claim a life of your own. A beautiful, thought ful debut.
Midwest Bookreview
"A deftly crafted work of fiction, In The Great Quiet, by Laura Vogt is based on the true story of her own great-great-grandparents in an inherently fascinating story of one woman's intense connection with the land, her future threatening past, and an elemental search for a home against all odds.
Original, compelling, and a riveting read from start to finish, In the Great Quiet is unreservedly recommended for personal reading lists as well as community library Historical Fiction/ Romance/Western fiction collection.
Historical Novel Review
This masterful work of historical fiction tells of the fourth and largest of Oklahoma’s land rushes... Excellent voice draws the reader into Minnie’s hopes, fears, thoughts, and emotions as she grows from a clueless wild child to become the center of her community. Her protesting against the results of her own willfulness reveals and deepens her character.
In addition to recalled parental and siblings’ voices, she senses the voices of other women tied to this land, past and future. Her story extends backward and forward from that 1893 event, setting her on a crash course with people who would eventually be her new community—friends and enemies alike...
Vogt captures the expanse of the frontier... The vivid rendering of colors, sounds, and details of country living increases immediacy. The great quiet is very much alive.
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.
Reader Review
from Goodreads
Absolutely stunning.
Good God. I have rarely been so moved by a book as by this one. It's beauty from start to finish. I could smell the wildflowers and the rain. I could hear the silence.
Reader Review
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.
Reader Review
from Goodreads
In the Great Quiet swept me away so completely that closing the book felt like coming back from another lifetime. Laura Vogt has crafted a stunning love letter to the Oklahoma prairie of 1893, its silence, its vastness, its dangers, and its unexpected tenderness. As a French reader who didn’t grow up steeped in the mythology of the American West, I found myself utterly enchanted. The world felt new, alive, and achingly real.
This novel radiates care. Every sentence is gorgeous, evocative, and placed with such intention that you can almost hear the wind across the prairie grass. The story draws you so close to the land and its people that you don’t just see them... you feel them. The title couldn’t be more perfect: there is a deep, resonant quiet running through the book, a stillness that holds both hardship and hope.
And let’s talk about that slow burn. MY GOD.
The tension, the longing, the deliciously patient unfolding of connection... I was basically feral! It is so rare to find a historical story that handles romance with such restraint and intensity, all while keeping women at the center of the narrative. Cowboys + frontier history + a woman’s interior world = my entire brand now, apparently.
This is the kind of novel that makes you fall in love with a place you’ve never been and a past you never lived. It feels intimate, lived-in, and profoundly human. I’m genuinely grateful to have read it, and even more grateful that the author trusted me with a galley. If you love atmospheric writing, slow-burn romance, frontier stories, or simply books that take your breath away, please read this. Thank you for the privilege, Laura.
In the Great Quiet is, quite simply, phenomenal.
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
Goodreads Review
I loved this story. It will live with me.
Reader Review
Goodreads Review
One of the most beautiful books I have ever read.
Laura's writing is at once mesmerizing as it is lyrical and poetic
Reader Review
a literary agent
Your book really knocked me over -- what a voice.
Reader Review
Goodreads Review
A western for women!
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
Oh my goodness me.
What an intrinsically detailed,
beautifully written novel. The landscapes, the relational tensions, the storyline.
Ugh, just stunning.
Reader Review
from Goodreads
Beautiful Story, Beautifully Told
There are books you just savor every moment as you read. This was one of those.
Reader Review
from Goodreads
Couldn't wait to go
to bed and read my Kindle.
Reader Review
from Goodreads
THIS BOOK ! Oh my word
Reader Review
from Goodreads
This was pretty much everything I want in a book.
Beautifully written, romance, historical fiction, complex characters.
Reader Review
Goodreads Review
Amazing.
One of the most beautifully written books I’ve ever read.
An amazing book, with beautiful landscapes, complex characters and unexpected turns.
Reader Review
Goodreads Review
I love this story. What an adventure. I could not put it down.
Reader Review
Goodreads Review
There are some books you read and enjoy, and then there are books that settle into your bones. In the Great Quiet was one of those books for me.
Laura Vogt’s writing is stunning. Every page is filled with rich imagery and a flowing, almost poetic cadence that made me want to slow down and savor each chapter. This isn’t a story that rushes. It unfolds the way seasons do, revealing its beauty a little at a time....
Beautiful, thoughtful, and quietly powerful, In the Great Quiet is a book I won’t soon forget. I can easily imagine it becoming a classic for readers who love literary historical fiction and stories rooted in the enduring strength of women and the land.
Reader Review
Goodreads Review
Beautiful, wildly romantic historical saga based on the lives of the author's great-great-grandparents who participated in the Oklahoma Land Rush.
Reader Review
Goodreads Review
Amazing Story.
This is one of the best books I have read in a long time. I loved the characters...
Heartfelt, dramatic, courageous, brave souls.
Reader Review
Goodreads Review
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
Goodreads Review
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.
Reader Review
Goodreads Review
One of my favorite books yet! This book!! Wowzer!
Reader Review
Goodreads Review
honestly gave me chills...
it was everything i needed and everything ive been looking for. and its inspired by a true story? but it has some magic written into it as well which just brings it to life even more.
idk this was just everything to me
Reader Review
Goodreads Review
I cannot possibly encapsulate the magic and beauty of this book into a review. It is poetic, enchanting, gritty, unlike any story or prose I have ever read. Minnie is not just a character or an ancestor, she's an example of what an intrepid woman is capable of; a powerful reminder that, just like Minnie and the women who have come before us, we are strong and more than able to forge our own ways in this life. I will undoubtedly be reading this story again and again.
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