Available Formats
Paperback
Published: 9th April 2024
Hardback
Published: 2nd July 2024
Paperback
Published: 8th July 2025
CD-Audio, Audiobook
Published: 4th June 2024
The Borrowed Hills
By (Author) Scott Preston
John Murray Press
John Murray Publishers Ltd
2nd July 2024
11th April 2024
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
Hardback
272
Width 156mm, Height 236mm, Spine 30mm
480g
As foot and mouth disease spreads across the hills of Cumbria, emptying the valleys of sheep and filling the skies with smoke, Steve Elliman and William Herne, two neighbouring farmers, join forces to reverse their fortunes by rustling livestock from the south. With the struggles of the land never far away, Steve's only distraction is his growing fascination with William's wife, Helen. When their mountain home comes under the sway of a ruthless outsider, it is left to Steve to save himself and what's left of their farming community, in a savage conflict that threatens an ancient way of life.
A reimagining of the American Western for the fells of northern England, Scott Preston's thrilling debut tells of men and women battered by circumstance, struggling to make lives for themselves in an unyielding land. Lyrical, cinematic, visceral and steeped in local folklore, The Borrowed Hills is an epic tale of a forgotten Britain.Scott Preston is from Windermere in the Lake District, where his father was a drystone waller and his grandparents were national park wardens. He studied philosophy at the University of Sheffield before working as a copywriter. He is a graduate of the University of Manchester's creative writing program and received a PhD in prose fiction from King's College London.