The Borrowed Hills

“Viscerally vivid…half Tarantino and half pitch-black northern realism.” —The Guardian, Named a Best Book of 2024 * “Unfolds with a pleasurable, slow-burn assurance.” —The New York Times Book Review

A stunning and “spiky debut” (The Times, London) novel set in the rugged, rural landscape of northwest England, where two sheep farmers lose their flocks and decide to reverse their fortunes by stealing sheep from a rich farm in the south—for fans of Annie Proulx and Cormac McCarthy.

In early 2001, a lethal disease breaks out on the hill farms of northwest England, emptying the valleys of sheep and filling the skies with smoke as they burn the carcasses. Two neighboring shepherds lose everything and set their sights on a wealthy farm in the south with its flock of prizewinning animals. So begins the dark tale of Steve Elliman and William Herne.

As their sheep rustling leads to more and more difficult decisions, the struggles of the land are never far away. Steve’s only distraction is his growing fascination with William’s enigmatic and independent wife, Helen. When their mountain home comes under the sway of a lawless outsider, Colin Tinley, Steve must save himself and Helen in a savage conflict that threatens the ancient ways of the Lakeland fells.

Told in the hardscrabble voice of a forgotten England, Scott Preston creates an uncompromising vision of farmers lost in brutal devotion to their flocks, the aching love affairs that men and women use to sustain themselves, and the painful consequences of a breathtaking heist gone bad. The Borrowed Hills “strides confidently across its pages, like the seasoned work of a veteran” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis), a thrilling and gritty adventure that reimagines the American Western for Britain’s moors and mountains where survival is in the blood.