The Borrowed Hills

April 1, 2024
A Wild West-type tale of rustling and villainy, blood and belonging, transposed to the bleakly beautiful fells and sheep flocks of northern England. Preston's debut arrives like a punch to the gut, darkly phrased and launching quickly into the ghastly consequences of foot-and-mouth disease spreading through the farms of Cumbria. Sheep are slaughtered and burned by the thousands, and small farmers ruined, including the elderly father of loner Steve Elliman--"I like dogs more than people"--the tough but upright narrator of the story. One farmer, William Herne, tries to buck the rules, and Steve lends a hand, until Herne is forced to submit. Steve then returns to his other job--"Only two things I knew was driving and sheep"--until his father's death brings him back to the fells, and to Herne and his compelling wife, Helen, whom Steve has known since childhood. Herne pulls Steve into another risky enterprise, this time driving one of the trucks in a big sheep robbery spearheaded by slippery Colin Tinley. The job goes well enough, but Tinley sticks around afterward, bringing mayhem and lawlessness with him. Steve's been well paid but doesn't want to get involved with the next job, which goes wrong anyway. This phase of the story is a blur of fighting, police involvement, guns, and savage dogs, all leading to a showdown high in the hills. But even with an end to the crimes, the destiny-defining drama among Steve, William, and Helen is not done. Preston delivers his narrative in clipped yet rhythmic prose: "I eyed up the three lads, stood nervy they were, and all a step too close," although the vernacular might require a glossary for those unfamiliar with "nowt," "bowk," and much more. This is an elemental tale shaded in tones of heroism, machismo, moral intensity, and mythmaking. It's also a love song to the landscape: "These rocks make me want to bloody cry." Gritty, gripping, and fearlessly committed. A notable beginning.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from April 8, 2024
Preston’s blistering debut takes place in the farthest reaches of northern England, on “cloud-eaten” fells battered by wind and inhabited mostly by sheep. There’s nothing much for narrator Steve Elliman to do when he returns to his elderly dad’s farm after spending years away as a lorry driver up and down the coast, except tend the family flock and think (“I’ve stared at a mountain so long I thought I was one”). When it turns out the sheep must be slaughtered to slow the spread of an outbreak of foot and mouth disease, the bloodletting and carcass burning is brutal but quick, handled by teams of men in white suits. William Hearne, the Ellimans’ hardhearted and taciturn neighbor who also lost his flock to the “squaddies,” enlists Steve in enacting a kind of justice by stealing hundreds of prize sheep from a farm that caters to “offcomers,” or tourists. Steve then begins working for William, tending to the stolen sheep on the vast hills of his neighbor’s farm. He’s a shepherd, after all, and shepherds need sheep to care for, but he’s also drawn to William’s wife, Helen, and he stays at the farm until trouble comes, ensnaring them and William’s son, Danny, in a violent spiral. Preston’s brilliant tonal range extends from epic heroism, as the men scramble after sheep on shale knee-deep in muck, to uncompromising realism (“Mucking out was a way of life and we were finding out what the end of that looked like”). This dark and inspired tale pulses with life. Agent: Peter Straus, RCW Literary.

May 1, 2024
Preston's debut is everything it sets out to be: picturesque but brutal and uncompromising. It is the unflinching story of farmers' lives in Cumbria, told through the eyes of one, a young man named Steve, who lives on his father's impoverished land. He is at odds with his father over everything until the rumors come over the mountain: foot-and-mouth disease has been seen in the livestock. After Steve and his father lose everything to the disease, Steve decides to team up with a neighboring farmer named William in order to take back what has been lost. Each decision leads to steeper consequences, and Steve finds himself caught up in something much too big for him as those consequences destroy the life he knew, little by little. These Borrowed Hills is told in the voice of a hardened British farmer, used to nothing but misery and hardship and backbreaking work, and this steely tale will have a lasting effect on the reader.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.