31 Best fiction books like The Borrowed Hills by Scott Preston

Cover of The Borrowed Hills by Scott  Preston

The Borrowed Hills

By: Scott Preston

3.87

Format: 303 pages, Kindle Edition

A cinematic neo-Western set in the fells of northern England. "Half Tarantino and half pitch-bla…

"We’d burned through everything, even what we’d no right to, rubbed out the stars and hid the moon, and if the night sky wasn’t already black, we’d have had a good go at making it."

-Scott Preston, The Borrowed Hills

"She’d look at me like I’m an idiot since I am one, but she still looked at me. That’s how Helen was, and that’s how I’ve always been. That’s why I like dogs more than people. Why I am a bloody dog. They see you drowning, and they’ll throw themselves in and drown next to you. Always hungry without knowing why. Without knowing if they need feeding. Chase after you till they die like their breath was something you once dropped."

-Scott Preston, The Borrowed Hills

"Two weeks of thinking I’d sort it out tomorrow, what came next. Eating crisps in bed or in the bath and getting a headache from all the salt. Daytime telly on as if it can keep you warm—the kind that lets you know there’s worse things than death. There’s nowt so dangerous as a room with no view. Started seeing things in the popcorn ceiling. Every sad bastard thought come to life, stretching near forty years, and they went on and on, filling the room like a leaking oven, finding a gap under the door and flooding out till my head felt the size of the world."

-Scott Preston, The Borrowed Hills

"It rained on the day of my dad’s funeral. Folk here are born with waterproof skin and a double set of eyelids like a trout. But I’ve seen nowt like it before. Wherever the ground dipped it turned to a puddle, and wherever there was a puddle it turned to a lake and the lakes turned to seas and every road became a river and the fields became swimming baths and the sheep became swimmers and the village of Bewrith became Venice and every window was now a door 75 Scott Preston and every car was now a stepping stone and after three hundred years of standing, Bewrith Bridge was torn out its banks and vil- lagers came to wave it off down the River Pishon like the launch of some royal ship only they drank from bottles of whisky instead of smashing them."

-Scott Preston, The Borrowed Hills

If you liked the fiction plot in The Borrowed Hills by Scott Preston , here is a list of 31 books like this:

Cover of A Natural by Ross Raisin

1. A Natural

By: Ross Raisin

3.71

Format: 352 pages, Hardcover

Tom has always known exactly the person he is going to be. A successful footballer. A man others lo… read more

Similar categories in Ross Raisin's A Natural book and Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills

  • contemporary
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • british literature
Cover of Caledonian Road by Andrew O'Hagan

2. Caledonian Road

By: Andrew O'Hagan

3.96

Format: 608 pages, Hardcover

A biting portrait of British class, politics, and money told through five interconnected families a… read more

Similar categories in Andrew O'Hagan's Caledonian Road book and Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills

  • literary fiction
  • british literature
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
Cover of Wild Houses by Colin  Barrett

3. Wild Houses

By: Colin Barrett

3.78

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

A darkly funny and deeply moving debut novel about crimes of desperation, dreams abandoned, and sma… read more

Similar categories in Colin Barrett's Wild Houses book and Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills

  • mystery thriller
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
"What you are in, Dev, is a holding pattern, only you're not holding out for anything."

-Colin Barrett, Wild Houses

"All boys, all children, are capable of cruelty at the right juncture of opportunity and circumstance, but only a few become committed prodigies of sadism..."

-Colin Barrett, Wild Houses

"In the dream, exactly as he had in real life, he sensed the slow, inexorable approach of the shapeless, prospectless days to come, days when there would be no need to get out of bed or brush his teet…"

-Colin Barrett, Wild Houses

"He looked around the empty kitchen. A part of him wanted this of course. A part of him had always wanted this, to be alone, away from even the prospect of any demand upon him to talk, to interact, to…"

-Colin Barrett, Wild Houses

Cover of The Spoiled Heart by Sunjeev Sahota

4. The Spoiled Heart

By: Sunjeev Sahota

3.82

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

Nayan Olak is a man with a past. Haunted by the sudden death of his young son and his mother and dr… read more

Similar categories in Sunjeev Sahota's The Spoiled Heart book and Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills

  • literary fiction
  • british literature
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
Cover of Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel

5. Headshot

By: Rita Bullwinkel

3.63

Format: 224 pages, Hardcover

An electrifying debut novel from an “unusually gifted writer” (Lorrie Moore) about the radical inti… read more

Similar categories in Rita Bullwinkel's Headshot book and Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills

  • literary fiction
  • novels
  • fiction
  • contemporary
"The desire to please people is the desire to not be singular."

-Rita Bullwinkel, Headshot

"Tanya Maw's sister is two years older, the perfect age gap for wisdom transmission."

-Rita Bullwinkel, Headshot

"It can be intoxicating to play a sport that requires one to look in their opponent's eyes."

-Rita Bullwinkel, Headshot

"It's a warmth that she'll feel again very few times in her life. It's almost like love, but it has a surer, less desperate edge to it."

-Rita Bullwinkel, Headshot

Cover of The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry

6. The Heart in Winter

By: Kevin Barry

4.02

Format: 256 pages, Hardcover

Award-winning writer Kevin Barry’s first novel set in America, a savagely funny and achingly romant… read more

Similar categories in Kevin Barry's The Heart in Winter book and Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills

  • literary fiction
  • westerns
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
"... the morning was starkly lit under a migraine - white and vast opening sky."

-Kevin Barry, The Heart in Winter

Cover of Fire Exit by Morgan Talty

7. Fire Exit

By: Morgan Talty

3.79

Format: 243 pages, Hardcover

The blood that came out of me was blood that ran through her veins. It’s strange: all blood looks t… read more

Similar categories in Morgan Talty's Fire Exit book and Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills

  • literary fiction
  • novels
  • fiction
  • contemporary
"...what's more sacred than laughter at the dinner table?"

-Morgan Talty, Fire Exit

"That's my life, though--not knowing, but wishing. [Charles Lamosway]"

-Morgan Talty, Fire Exit

"We are made of stories, and if we don't know them--the ones that make us--how can we ever be fully realized? How can we ever be who we really are?"

-Morgan Talty, Fire Exit

"...I was thinking and thinking about how, in just the past year, I had just started to know her, but then I began to unknow her, getting farther and farther away like watching a boat drift from the s…"

-Morgan Talty, Fire Exit

Cover of Whale Fall by Elizabeth  O'Connor

8. Whale Fall

By: Elizabeth O'Connor

3.87

Format: 224 pages, Hardcover

A stunning debut from an award-winning writer, about loss, isolation, folklore, and the joy and dis… read more

Similar categories in Elizabeth O'Connor's Whale Fall book and Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills

  • literary fiction
  • historical
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • historical fiction
Cover of Clear by Carys Davies

9. Clear

By: Carys Davies

3.92

Format: 196 pages, Hardcover

A stunning, exquisite novel from an award-winning writer about a minister dispatched to a remote is… read more

Similar categories in Carys Davies's Clear book and Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills

  • literary fiction
  • historical
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • historical fiction
Cover of Enlightenment by Sarah Perry

10. Enlightenment

By: Sarah Perry

3.70

Format: 384 pages, Hardcover

A dazzling new work of literary fiction from the author of The Essex Serpent, a story of love and a… read more

Similar categories in Sarah Perry's Enlightenment book and Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills

  • literary fiction
  • british literature
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • contemporary
"Thomas [Hart] lived where he'd been born, and where (so he often thought without rancor) he'd very likely die; and if he lived alone he was not lonely, that being a condition not of solitude but of l…"

-Sarah Perry, Enlightenment

"So I told her this: that it's true I've only rarely been happy, and perhaps more often been sad. But I have been content. I have lived. I have felt everything available to me: I've been faithless, de…"

-Sarah Perry, Enlightenment

"I wish I could say, James, that we forgave each other in the end. I wish I could say: she put her head on my shoulder and I welcomed it and we laughed and said all was well. But in fact we were quiet…"

-Sarah Perry, Enlightenment

"...in the ordinary way we love because we're loved, and give more or less what we're given. But to love without return is more strange and more wonderful, and not the humiliating thing I'd once taken…"

-Sarah Perry, Enlightenment

Cover of Blessings by Chukwuebuka Ibeh

11. Blessings

By: Chukwuebuka Ibeh

4.20

Format: 288 pages, Hardcover

Moonlight meets Purple Hibiscus in this gay coming-of-age novel from an astonishing young talent, s… read more

Similar categories in Chukwuebuka Ibeh's Blessings book and Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
Cover of Orbital by Samantha Harvey

12. Orbital

By: Samantha Harvey

3.73

Format: 207 pages, Hardcover

A slender novel of epic power, Orbital  deftly snapshots one day in the lives of six women and men … read more

Similar categories in Samantha Harvey's Orbital book and Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills

  • literary fiction
  • novels
  • fiction
  • contemporary
"Maybe we're the new dinosaurs and need to watch out."

-Samantha Harvey, Orbital

"The past comes, the future, the past, the future. It's always now, it's never now."

-Samantha Harvey, Orbital

"Raw space is a panther, feral and primal; they dream it stalking through their quarters."

-Samantha Harvey, Orbital

"That's all this great human endeavor of space exploration really is, he thinks, an animal migration, a bid for survival. A looping song sent into the open, a territorial animal song."

-Samantha Harvey, Orbital

Cover of Blue Ruin by Hari Kunzru

13. Blue Ruin

By: Hari Kunzru

3.86

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

From one of the sharpest voices in fiction today, a profound and enthralling novel about beauty, po… read more

Similar categories in Hari Kunzru's Blue Ruin book and Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills

  • literary fiction
  • novels
  • fiction
  • contemporary
Cover of We Burn Daylight by Bret Anthony Johnston

14. We Burn Daylight

By: Bret Anthony Johnston

3.95

Format: 352 pages, Hardcover

An epic novel of star-crossed lovers set in a doomsday cult on the Texas prairie that asks: what wo… read more

Similar categories in Bret Anthony Johnston's We Burn Daylight book and Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills

  • historical
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
Cover of The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden

15. The Safekeep

By: Yael van der Wouden

4.08

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

An exhilarating, twisted tale of desire, suspicion, and obsession between two women staying in the … read more

Similar categories in Yael van der Wouden's The Safekeep book and Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills

  • historical
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
Cover of The Borrowed Hills by Scott  Preston

16. The Borrowed Hills

By: Scott Preston

3.87

Format: 303 pages, Kindle Edition

A cinematic neo-Western set in the fells of northern England. "Half Tarantino and half pitch-bla… read more

Similar categories in Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills book and Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills

  • mystery thriller
  • literary fiction
  • british literature
  • westerns
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • contemporary
  • thriller
  • novels
"We’d burned through everything, even what we’d no right to, rubbed out the stars and hid the moon, and if the night sky wasn’t already black, we’d have had a good go at making it."

-Scott Preston, The Borrowed Hills

"She’d look at me like I’m an idiot since I am one, but she still looked at me. That’s how Helen was, and that’s how I’ve always been. That’s why I like dogs more than people. Why I am a bloody dog. T…"

-Scott Preston, The Borrowed Hills

"Two weeks of thinking I’d sort it out tomorrow, what came next. Eating crisps in bed or in the bath and getting a headache from all the salt. Daytime telly on as if it can keep you warm—the kind that…"

-Scott Preston, The Borrowed Hills

"It rained on the day of my dad’s funeral. Folk here are born with waterproof skin and a double set of eyelids like a trout. But I’ve seen nowt like it before. Wherever the ground dipped it turned to …"

-Scott Preston, The Borrowed Hills

Cover of The Kellerby Code by Jonny Sweet

17. The Kellerby Code

By: Jonny Sweet

3.51

Format: None pages, ebook

Edward is living in a world he can't afford and to which he doesn't belong. To camouflage himself, … read more

Similar categories in Jonny Sweet's The Kellerby Code book and Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills

  • mystery thriller
  • thriller
  • fiction
  • contemporary
Cover of Brat by Gabriel Smith

18. Brat

By: Gabriel Smith

3.53

Format: 320 pages, Hardcover

From a provocative new literary talent, a hilarious and haunted novel featuring an unlikable protag… read more

Similar categories in Gabriel Smith's Brat book and Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills

  • thriller
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
"I chose this one. This is the one I care about."

-Gabriel Smith, Brat

Cover of Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil by Ananda Lima

19. Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil

By: Ananda Lima

3.52

Format: 181 pages, Hardcover

At a Halloween party in 1999, a writer slept with the devil. She sees him again and again throughou… read more

Similar categories in Ananda Lima's Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil book and Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
Cover of Glorious Exploits by Ferdia  Lennon

20. Glorious Exploits

By: Ferdia Lennon

4.24

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

An utterly original celebration of that which binds humanity across battle lines and history. On… read more

Similar categories in Ferdia Lennon's Glorious Exploits book and Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills

  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
"He sang a song from Media's chorus, it was a few bitter scenes later when the kids are dead, and it gives a weird sense of time mergin', and for a moment I had the feeling that the future and the pas…"

-Ferdia Lennon, Glorious Exploits

"He sang a song from Media's chorus, it was a few bitter scenes later when the kids are dead, and it gives a weird sense of time mergin', and for a moment I have the feeling that the future and the pa…"

-Ferdia Lennon, Glorious Exploits

Cover of Held by Anne   Michaels

21. Held

By: Anne Michaels

3.66

Format: 240 pages, Hardcover

A breathtaking and mysterious new novel from the beloved Anne Michaels, internationally bestselling… read more

Similar categories in Anne Michaels's Held book and Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills

  • historical
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
"Who can say what happens when we are remembered?"

-Anne Michaels, Held

"Do we really need our own misery to teach us to be kind?"

-Anne Michaels, Held

"We know life is finite. Why should we believe death lasts forever?"

-Anne Michaels, Held

"Would he know the moment of his death or would it be like night falling."

-Anne Michaels, Held

Cover of Playground by Richard Powers

22. Playground

By: Richard Powers

4.35

Format: 400 pages, Hardcover

A magisterial new novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning and New York Times best-selling author of T… read more

Similar categories in Richard Powers's Playground book and Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills

  • literary fiction
  • novels
  • fiction
  • contemporary
Cover of The Hypocrite by Jo Hamya

23. The Hypocrite

By: Jo Hamya

3.55

Format: 240 pages, Hardcover

From a fiercely talented writer poised to be a new generation’s Rachel Cusk or Deborah Levy, a nove… read more

Similar categories in Jo Hamya's The Hypocrite book and Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills

  • literary fiction
  • british literature
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
"No stories are entirely imaginary, cherub, he'd said then. Everything is always a little bit real. Sometimes you steal things from other stories and change them until they work how you like."

-Jo Hamya, The Hypocrite

"The contradiction of the time had been the heightened moral obligation to consider other people as a means to keeping one's own self-interest afloat. Showing other people care meant avoiding them."

-Jo Hamya, The Hypocrite

"In the theatre's dark, he weighs up what to do out of love. There have been enough divergences so far for him to believe that Sophia's play is a self-contained thing that may only tangentially concer…"

-Jo Hamya, The Hypocrite

Cover of Concerning the Future of Souls by Joy Williams

24. Concerning the Future of Souls

By: Joy Williams

4.05

Format: 176 pages, Hardcover

“Quite possibly America's best living writer of short stories.”—NPR“Williams is a writer for our b… read more

Similar categories in Joy Williams's Concerning the Future of Souls book and Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
Cover of Rare Singles by Benjamin Myers

25. Rare Singles

By: Benjamin Myers

4.09

Format: 224 pages, Hardcover

A warm, tender and funny story about unlikely friendships, second chances, and the magic of soul mu… read more

Similar categories in Benjamin Myers's Rare Singles book and Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills

  • contemporary
  • fiction
  • british literature
Cover of State of Paradise by Laura van den Berg

26. State of Paradise

By: Laura van den Berg

3.51

Format: 224 pages, Hardcover

A heart-racing fun house of uncanniness hidden in Florida’s underbelly, from a reality-warping stor… read more

Similar categories in Laura van den Berg's State of Paradise book and Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills

  • mystery thriller
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
Cover of Hombrecito by Santiago Jose Sanchez

27. Hombrecito

By: Santiago Jose Sanchez

3.95

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

A novel by a brilliant new voice, Hombrecito is a queer coming-of-age story about a young immigrant… read more

Similar categories in Santiago Jose Sanchez's Hombrecito book and Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills

  • literary fiction
  • novels
  • fiction
  • contemporary
Cover of Heart, Be at Peace by Donal Ryan

28. Heart, Be at Peace

By: Donal Ryan

4.22

Format: 208 pages, Kindle Edition

‘I said it before. Madness comes circling around. Ten-year cycles, as true as the sun will rise…’ S… read more

Similar categories in Donal Ryan's Heart, Be at Peace book and Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
Cover of Nicked by M.T. Anderson

29. Nicked

By: M.T. Anderson

3.85

Format: 223 pages, Hardcover

From the award-winning and bestselling author of Feed comes a raucous and slyly funny adult fiction… read more

Similar categories in M.T. Anderson's Nicked book and Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills

  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
Cover of Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner

30. Creation Lake

By: Rachel Kushner

3.67

Format: 416 pages, Hardcover

From Rachel Kushner, a Booker Prize finalist, two-time National Book Award finalist, and “one of th… read more

Similar categories in Rachel Kushner's Creation Lake book and Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills

  • mystery thriller
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • thriller
"Charisma does not originate inside the person called "charismatic." It comes from the need of others to believe that special people exist."

-Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake

"Plus, Lucien said, a lot of them had come from other social milieus and had tattoos from earlier lives, since people who change affinities are the same kinds of people who are attracted to the perman…"

-Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake

"My biker and these tramps, as people who organize their life around some subculture or other: People can sometimes pretend so thoroughly that they forget they are pretending. At which point, it could…"

-Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake

"I could sense him gathering a false hindsight that afternoon in the Place des Vosges, shaping a retrospective narrative, the thing a person tells himself about fate, about how everything had seemed f…"

-Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake

Cover of Private Rites by Julia Armfield

31. Private Rites

By: Julia Armfield

3.92

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

From the award-winning author of Our Wives Under the Sea, a speculative reimagining of King Lear, c… read more

Similar categories in Julia Armfield's Private Rites book and Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
"To be misunderstood is one thing, but the curious hostility of a sibling's approach lies less in what they miss than in the strange backdated nature of the things they choose to know. A person can be…"

-Julia Armfield, Private Rites

24 Top contemporary books like The Borrowed Hills by Scott Preston

Transform Your Habits

A Natural

Ross Raisin

3.71

Transform Your Habits

Caledonian Road

Andrew O'Hagan

3.96

Transform Your Habits

Wild Houses

Colin Barrett

3.78

Transform Your Habits

The Spoiled Heart

Sunjeev Sahota

3.82

View all the books

20 Best fiction books like Blessings by Chukwuebuka Ibeh

Transform Your Habits

Born on a Tuesday

Elnathan John

3.00

Transform Your Habits

Henry Henry

Allen Bratton

3.65

Transform Your Habits

Evenings and Weekends

Oisín McKenna

3.96

Transform Your Habits

Blessings

Chukwuebuka Ibeh

4.20

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