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Cover of UNQUY, a novel by Laura Voglino
Historical novel · Laura Voglino

UNQUY

An ancestral gift. A revolution. The weight of love.

1811, the Northern Andes. Inés, a healer who can sense what others hide, enters the network of women who fought a war of independence without taking up arms.

A story of love, belonging, and identity

Where to find itDiscover the story
The novel

What others keep silent

Inés inherited a gift the women of her blood call Unquy: something that lets her glimpse fear, intention, whatever each person carries within.

Her mother spent her life hiding it. Inés was prepared to do the same—until the morning she sees a man pursued by royalist soldiers in the market at Tupiza and realizes that the papers beneath his arm could cost many lives.

To get them to Güemes, she enters a clandestine network that crosses the Quebrada de Humahuaca, the Jujuy Exodus, and the war of the montoneras: healers, traders, muleteers, and messengers—women who carry intelligence where men cannot go.

The man from the market has a name, Sebastián Aguirre, and he has learned to hide in a different way. Between loyalty, danger, and the weight of what Inés has inherited, love grows between them—deliberately chosen, with full knowledge of what is at stake.

For readers of Isabel Allende, María Dueñas, and Geraldine Brooks.

Available now

Choose how to read or listen to UNQUY

Amazon

Kindle and print formats are available from the book's Amazon page.

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Print edition

Order directly from IngramSpark. Bookstores and libraries may also order through Ingram's distribution network.

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Audiobook

Listen on Spotify or Google Play. Both offer a sample before purchase.

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In readers' words

Atmospheric, emotionally intense, and deeply rooted in place

“One of the strongest points of the book is women’s hidden role in history. Another is the burden of seeing too much.”
“The world of Alto Perú is vivid and textured without feeling like the history is being overly explained.”
“It is atmospheric, emotionally intense, and the story slowly pulls you in.”
“It blends history, romance, and magical realism.”
J. D. Cortese · reader
History and fiction

The women history rarely named

A landscape before today's borders

UNQUY moves through Tupiza, the Quebrada de Humahuaca, Jujuy, and Salta at a time before modern national borders. Roads, families, trade, and armies crossed a shared Andean region.

A war sustained from the margins

Inés and Sebastián are fictional. The Jujuy Exodus, Güemes's resistance, and the informal networks of healers, traders, muleteers, and messengers belong to the historical world surrounding them.

A novel for conversation

Book clubs

The book includes a special section for reading groups, with questions about history, identity, love, inheritance, and moral choice.

Laura Voglino is available for virtual visits with book clubs, libraries, and educational communities.

Invite the author

  • Zoom conversation
  • Reader questions and answers
  • Historical context for 1811–1812
  • The making of UNQUY
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Frequently asked questions

Before you open the book

What does Unquy mean?

In the novel, Unquy is the name the women in Inés's family give to an inherited sensitivity—the ability to perceive what others hide.

Is it based on real events?

The plot and its protagonists are fictional, set within real events in the Northern Andes: the wars of independence, the Jujuy Exodus, and the resistance associated with Güemes.

Is this magical realism?

It is first and foremost historical fiction with an ancestral, supernatural element. It also brings together adventure, romance, and psychological tension.

Where is it available?

In print, ebook, and audiobook through Amazon, IngramSpark, Spotify, Barnes & Noble, and participating libraries.

The author

Laura Voglino

Argentine-born writer, scientist, and cofounder of Opportuna Libri.

Laura Voglino writes historical fiction shaped by memory, identity, and the landscapes of the Northern Andes.

Trained in chemistry and biology, she was a cell biology researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and at Duke University, publishing on mitochondrial bioenergetics and protein–membrane interactions. She holds an MBA from UNC's Kenan-Flagler Business School and was a global marketing executive at IBM.

UNQUY, her debut novel, recovers the story of the women who sustained Argentina's independence from the margins. Laura wrote the novel in Spanish, translated it into English, and narrates the Spanish audiobook with a digital replica of her own voice, created and supervised by her. She lives in Durham, North Carolina, with her family.