Thank you to Netgalley and the Publishing Company for this Advanced Readers Copy of The Borrowed by Scott Preston!

I try really hard not to DNF books I'm given by a publisher, but I just wasn't in the frame of mind to read this slow-paced literary pick the two times I tried to pick it up. I thought the writing was interesting, I thought the plot was a little bare-bones but assume it's more of a character driven story. I'm sure those that read this book will enjoy it and find some positive takeaways and I expect to return to it at some point, but perhaps not before the end of the year, so I'm reviewing it now.

The Borrowed Hills was a great read. I loved the character study and sense of place as a character. Would read more from Preston.

I struggled with this book -- I really wanted to like it but overall thought it was very dense without a lot happening. The descriptions and writing are very vivid, and a lot of sheep die. I kept waiting for more plot but it felt pretty repetitive.

I enjoyed the writing enough that I will check out whatever Scott Preston writes next!

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book!

4.5⭐️

Dark, gritty and certainly not for the faint of heart, The Borrowed Hills by Scott Preston is a stunning debut.

The novel opens in the Cumbrian fells in 2001 and revolves around the lives of the sheep farmers whose fortunes take a turn for the worse when their flocks are afflicted by foot and mouth disease. Among the farms affected is a smallholding belonging to Steve Elliman’s father. Steve, our narrator, had left his family home in search of other opportunities but returned to help his elderly father. But when his flock is afflicted by the deadly disease, he is forced to conform to government regulations. He meets William Herne, the owner of a larger farm. William managed to separate his sick sheep from his healthy flock by hiding them away. Steve tries to help him, but they are unable to save the flock. Steve leaves but returns after he receives news of the death of his father. William is now embroiled with a shady character by the name of Colin Tinley, with whom he is planning a heist to steal the flock from a thriving farm. Steve accepts William’s offer to join him in the heist and stay on with him and his wife Helen, whom he has known since his school days, to help with the farm. The narrative follows Steve as his association with William and Colin leads him down a dark and twisted path.

Sparse yet lyrical prose and the vividly described setting transport you to the Cumbrian fells amid the beauty of hills and the struggling farming community. The author is brutal in his depiction of the fate of the diseased flock and does not hold back while describing the anguish, bleakness and violence from which Steve is unable (and somewhat unwilling) to walk away. What is found particularly compelling about Steve is that he is not portrayed as clueless is he unsuspecting of what might befall him as a consequence of his choices – be it his association with Colin, the growing tensions between him and William or his complicated feelings for Helen – but he chooses to stay, seemingly content in his solitude. The author explores the relationship between these characters and their relationship with the land they call home, the risks they would take and the limits they would cross to protect and preserve their way of life. Superb characterizations and a gripping narrative render this an immersive and powerful read.

I read a DRC of the novel and do not know whether the finished copy includes a glossary for the Cumbrian dialect interspersed throughout the novel (including the names of the chapters). Having a glossary ready to hand would have been useful.

Many thanks to Scribner for the digital review copy via NetGalley. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Grim and atmospheric, The Borrowed Hills is not for the faint of heart. Reminiscent of the epic tales of the American West, a la Cormac McCarthy, Scott Preston's novel tells the story of a Northern England overwrought by a virus that takes out flocks left and right. Families find themselves in a fight to save their birthrights and stay out of the hands of those who'd use this opportunity to seize power.

This book is carefully plotted and beautifully written but it is also incredibly descriptive and graphic in a way that reminds me of Blood Meridian. Preston is a talented writer and I look forward to seeing what he writes next.

I found this debut to be incredibly atmospheric, it reminded me of 'The Blackstone' or 'Looking Glass Sound' in the eerie setting and descriptions so vivid that, as a reader, you feel transported.

The MC Steve definitely felt like an underdog with bad luck at every turn, but always tried to make the most of what he had and to have an honest living.

The dialect took me a while to get the hang of ("nowt" for nothing, etc.) but once I caught onto it the story flowed freely. There is crime, murder, and a splash of romance. I am excited to see what Scott Preston writes next.

Unfortunately decided to DNF this one. This is 100% a me issue, not a book issue. Animal death is no secret with this book but I just really struggled with stomaching it. May revisit at a later date.

The Borrowed Hills by Scott Preston was an engaging debut title.
The writing was great and I found myself eager for more.
I enjoyed Preston’s writing style and thought the descriptions were so vivid.

Thank You NetGalley and Scribner for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

I am so thankful to the publisher, NetGalley, and the Author for granting me advanced access to this one before June 11, 2024. This one wasn't for me, but I am still really thankful for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

DNF at 60 pages

This book was hard for me to decide to continue with or not. I thought it was really different and unusual, but a little too unusual for me. I wanted to see where it was going, but the language and the writing style was very different for me and I had a hard time getting through it. Ultimately I decided to DNF because it just wasn’t for me, but I think this will be one of those polaraized opinion books: you will either really love it, or really not.

This book was an incredibly harrowing read, but I was so captivated from the beginning. The writing is so beautiful and the story so different from anything I have read before. While this did not seem like a book I would typically read, the author did a phenomenal, and I mean aPHENOMENAL job at laying out the setting and the characters we meet. The chaos going down at the beginning of the outbreak of foot and mouth disease was so scary and definitely made this feel a bit like a horror story with the descriptions, but was still so beautifully written. I would highly recommend this book!

For all intents and purposes, The Borrowed Hills is a book that is set up for me not to like. Farming and two male leads, this is not a book that I would rush to buy.

That said, this is a book for the ages. I would buy this book for my dad and grandpa. It's a book about home, about how we struggle to find ourselves at home. This is about dealing with the horror of a disease ruining the only way there is to make money. This is a book that is set in the real world, but is written like a dark fairy tale. It's people cut off from the modern world. It's blood, mud, guts, tears. It's the Wild West.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

The cover was what definitely had me ask for the book to read.

This book has you from page one and if you read the synopsis it definitely states what the book is about. I really enjoyed the writing and that the story was about loyalty.

I liked the setting and hope to read more by this author.

Thanks NetGalley for letting me read and review.

**Features:**
- Set in England’s Lake District (Cambria) during the early 2000s and the outbreak of foot and mouth disease
- Explores themes of isolation, loss, struggle, violence, and the old world meeting the new
- Illicit activities in a place where local rules and tradition are often more respected than the law
- Heavy and visceral, but quietly beautiful

The rolling hills of Cambria are picturesque to offcomers, but those trying to eke out a living on that unforgiving land know looks are deceiving. I wouldn’t go so far as to call this a love letter to this region of England, but it captures both the beauty and bleak nature of the land and how it has shaped the people living there. This book is dark and can feel almost oppressive at times, but it also does a wonderful job shedding some light on struggles we don’t often hear about or see. It is definitely not for the squeamish as you are often deep in the muck along with the characters and the sheep culling at the beginning of the book is described in great detail. I have mixed feelings about this book, but it is definitely impactful.

**Pro: Honesty is the best policy**

Steve Ellimen returns home to Northern England in order to help his aging father with lambing season only to have the whole herd culled after an outbreak of foot and mouth disease. The terrible ordeal brings him into the orbit of another farmer, William Herne, and his wife Helen. Slow to bounce back after such a catastrophe, William and Steve find themselves drawn into sheep rustling and a much darker criminal world. The deeper they go in the name of survival, the further they find themselves from the traditions and values that keep them tied to the land they are fighting for.

This book is a snapshot of life in the English countryside unlike any book I have read. It is a strangely visceral experience that is equally beautiful and brutal. Despite the level of detail provided, nothing feels overdone or overly dramatic in the writing. The same treatment is given to the main characters who have been shaped by this harsh landscape and a way of life that has been passed down for generations. They have their own style of communicating and a certain sense of stoicism and dark humor shaped by lifelong struggle. Though the reader is kept at about as far a distance as they keep from each other, you still get a good sense of who these people are, especially as parts of this identity are challenged.

A quick shout out should also go to how this book handles the tension between the old world and the new. We get a little of it in the form of tourists and outsiders passing through the small village to sightsee and how some of the area is slowly transformed. However, it comes to play unexpectedly through the illegal activities William and Steve find themselves participating in as well. It is funny how this made me start to think about certain crimes as being acceptable while others being completely out of sync with the way things ought to be without the book having to over explain it. It is definitely something that will sit with me for a while.

**The Breakdown: Following like sheep**

There are a lot of things in this book that I usually really enjoy and would tempt me to give it a perfect rating. However, for some reason, this book wasn’t really for me. There is nothing glaringly obvious as to why that is, but there were many times that it was a struggle to get through. After some reflection, I think it comes down to the main character; Steve. Even before the culling of his father’s herd, Steve seems to lack much ambition, opinion, or direction. He doesn’t want to be part of life in Cambria, but he keeps finding himself back there. The main problem I think I have is that for a large chunk of the book, Steve doesn’t act like a player in his own life and just seems to wander until something happens to shift his direction. This story is narrated by an older Steve, so it is bound to have some of that quality. However, it goes beyond just the narration style in a way that probably bothered me more than I care to admit. There were a few moments where I felt like maybe he had started to discover some of that fire and direction, only to have it be a fleeting thing.

Steve’s general attitude of wandering lost through life makes him susceptible to influence with those by more ambition and/or direction. In this case, that person is William Herne. Even in the beginning, the two are not really friends but are still connected as shepherds struck by the same tragedy on the same land their families had been for generations. I think there’s something powerful in that connection, but I does not come through as strongly in the story. William embodies the stoic and somewhat ornery shepherd character well, but there’s nothing about him that makes him a compelling person to follow. I liked his wife, Helen, but she doesn’t really have this quality either. As a result, it just kind of seems like Steve gets drawn in because that is what is most convenient and that made some of his later development feel a little less sincere.

This is a spectacular debut novel set in Cumbria in northwest England. The Cumbrian mountains, or fells, are the highest peaks in England, with at least a couple dozen ranging in height from 1500-3200 feet. They provide rocky grazing lands above the timberline, and this is the setting for the novel.

William and Steven (the narrator) are sheep farmers. William is the more successful, but both flocks are struck with hoof and mouth. The two resort to rustling, beginning a downward spiral where outlaws and unchecked violence enter their world. And all of that is added to dirty, back-breaking work that lasts from before sunrise to after sundown.

As a complication, Steven has a fascination for William’s wife … a woman who would use silverware even if her hands were clean. (How great is that line?)

This is a wonderful book dealing with brutality in a hostile world, where “rugged individualism” seems more like hopeless isolation.

DNF at 30%. Unfortunately, The Borrowed Hills isn't for me and didn't win me over with the prose or characters although I love the premise! The book's overly descriptive at points about the landscapes and while there was definitely some intrigue, it wasn't enough to keep me on board.

Thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for giving me an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Scott Preston's prose, both lyrical and blunt, vividly paints the narrative's landscape. Despite initial adjustments to dialogue, the characters' voices soon captivate, leading through an intriguing and sometimes disheartening exploration. Navigating uncharted territory, readers are drawn by fully realized characters and a mesmerizing plot. Overall, 'The Borrowed Hills' offers a rich and immersive reading experience, showcasing Preston's adept storytelling.

A good historical novel, even though it was 2001. I love any story about sheep farming. A well thought out, unique novel.

Two sheep farmers lose their flocks of sheep and begin stealing sheep from wealthy farmers. A story of farmers devoted to their flocks and of rural England. Interesting read.