The Borrowed Hills
The Borrowed Hills by Scott Preston is one of 2026's most credible books, appearing on 1 of the year's most respected lists, including The Guardian, for a Consensus Score of 13 out of 100.
Appears on these lists
Our take
AI-draftedPreston's debut takes the 2001 foot-and-mouth crisis in Cumbria as its backdrop and turns it into something closer to rural noir — a farmer, already stretched thin, drawn into a scheme that spirals toward violence he can't control. Critics have responded to how unglamorous the collapse feels, an unsentimental portrait of men cornered by economic ruin.
In the press
“A sucker-punch of a novel, edged with knife-sharp black humour and shot through with moments of startling beauty.”
Clare Clark, The Guardian
How the Consensus Score is calculated
Our Consensus Score is our own transparent editorial metric — not a user rating. It weighs each list by the credibility of its source, how recent the listing is, and any award status. Here is the full breakdown.
| Source | Authority | Recency | Award | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Guardian | 0.85 | 0.70 | 1.00× | 0.59 |
| Weighted sum → Score | 0.59 → 13 | |||
Similar consensus books
Because they appear on some of the same lists.
Frequently asked
What lists is The Borrowed Hills on?
The Borrowed Hills appears on 1 list in our 2026 corpus, including The Guardian.
What is its Consensus Score?
The Borrowed Hills has a Consensus Score of 13 out of 100, our transparent editorial measure of how many credible lists agree on it.