Barber, Black Sheep is a Historical Fiction novel by Canadian author Ann Neville, released on February 14th, 2024 via Amazon self-publishing in both ebook and paperback formats. Set in Victorian England in the year 1870, it tells the story of Oliver Winslow, a kleptomaniac barber trying to move on after spending the better part of his twenties in prison. Unfortunately for Oliver, however, both his compulsive need to steal and his past continue to haunt him, even as he does his best to overcome his hardships and pursue his burgeoning relationship with Kittie Wilson, a scullery maid in the employment of Oliver's boss's best friend, a local nobleman.
Ann Neville's website can be found here
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Barber, Black Sheep contains examples of:
- Affectionate Nickname: Oliver uses "Miss Kittie" for Kittie.
- Animal Motifs: There are numerous examples in the novel: Lord Harrington is compared to a dog, and his butler Leslie Barry is compared to a Badger. Most notable, the Wilson family consists of three women named Kittie, Bunny and Birdie although it's subverted by the deceased father of the family, John.
- A Taste of the Lash: Oliver experiences this punishment while at Flitwith Prison.
- All Jews Are Ashkenazi: Averted, as the novel's prominent Jewish character, Weldon Spurgeon, is Sephardic.
- Babies Ever After: The novel ends with the reveal that Oliver and Kittie have had their first child, Lucy Junior, and that Winston and Laura have also had another child, Charles.
- Big Fancy House: The Harrington Estate is depicted as such.
- Black Sheep: Oliver, as suggested by the title.
- Blue Blood: Both the Harringtons and Lucius are aristocrats.
- Beta Couple: The novel has two of them which form near the end of the work: Harrington/Spurgeon and Cora/Hannah.
- Britain Is Only London: Averted. The novel isn't set in London, but in a town called Pilfershire, based loosely on Portsmouth.
- Character Catchphrase: "A bit" serves as this for Lord Harrington. This is lampshaded by his daughter, Hannah, who points out her father's tendency to slip the words into his speech to Oliver, and then immediately lampshaded again when Hannah does it herself shortly afterwards, seemingly unintentionally.
- Chore Character Exploration: Several conversations throughout the novel take place while Oliver or Kittie are taking care of household tasks and conversing with their respective halves of the supporting cast.
- Crash-Into Hello: Although she isn't his love interest, this is how Cora and Oliver meet for the first and only time in the novel.
- Cute Clumsy Girl: Cora.
- Dances and Balls: A dance held by Lord Harrington serves as the backdrop for a number of early chapters.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Oliver's time in prison counts as this. Kittie also has a fairly troubled past, having grown up poor, losing her father to illness because her family couldn't afford medicine, and having been abused by a former employer which left her with burn scars on her arms.
- Dead Guy Junior: Oliver and Kittie name their first-born child Lucy, after Oliver's little sister who died as an infant.
- Dead Person Conversation: Played with, as Lucy's ghost visits Oliver in prison, but doesn't really speak.
- Death of a Child: One of the Winslow siblings, Lucy, died as an infant prior to the events of the novel.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Oliver stole a small family heirloom (admittedly a memento from their deceased mother) from Barry's half-brother and damaged it in the process of returning it, so Barry first decides to frame him for another theft. When that doesn't work, he upgrades to attempting to murder Oliver.
- Disappointing Older Sibling: This is how the Winslow family's patriarch, Caspar, viewed Oliver in relation to Winston.
- Doting Parent: Birdie, Kittie's mother, is one of these. She decides to treat Oliver, her daughter's new boyfriend, as if he were her own son more-or-less the first day they meet.
- Dramatic Shattering: This is what happens to the glass horse when Oliver tries to return it to Dunham, as a nearby hansom cab whizzes too close to comfort and startles Oliver into dropping the trinket.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: The initial reason that Leslie Barry, the villain of the novel, decides to target Oliver is that Oliver stole and then damaged a small decorative glass horse that was an heirloom from his deceased mother.
- Evil All Along: Leslie Barry.
- First Love: Oliver and Kittie serve as this for one another. Oliver has never been in a relationship before, while all of Kittie's former suitors were rather mediocre men.
- Five-Finger Discount: Oliver's typical method of stealing goods is simply plucking it from people's pockets.
- Fond Memories That Could Have Been: Averted, as Oliver had an incredibly close relationship with his infant sister, Lucy, before she passed away. Later invoked by the narration when Oliver either hallucinates or is visited by Lucy's teenage ghost during his stay in Flitwith Prison.
- Forgotten Fallen Friend: Lucy, their younger sister who died in infancy, serves as this for Evelyn and Winston. Their failure to remember her birthday greatly upsets Oliver.
- Funetik Aksent: Kittie's mother, Birdie, has her speech rendered this way.
- Grave-Marking Scene: Several of these are peppered throughout the novel.
- Half-Sibling Angst: Averted. Lucius repeatedly expresses how much he loves his half-siblings and their children.
- Hates Their Parent: Oliver despised his father, Caspar, before the latter's death.
- Hellhole Prison: Flitwith, where Oliver spent his incarceration, absolutely qualifies.
- The Help Helping Themselves: Leslie Barry, Lord Harrington's butler, turns out to be responsible for the items going missing in his home.
- Like a Son to Me: This is how Spurgeon views Oliver.
- Little Miss Con Artist: Part of Kittie's backstory.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: It is ambiguous whether Oliver was hallucinating or whether he really saw Lucy's ghost.
- Middle Child Syndrome: Oliver's got a bad case of this.
- Mood Whiplash: Oliver and Kittie's trip to the Crystal Palace in London starts out as a cute and informative date, before Oliver's kleptomania causes an incident that utterly spoils the mood and nearly breaks them up.
- Never Got to Say Goodbye: This causes Oliver no small amount of grief regarding the death of his mother. It hits particularly hard because he refused to meet with her when she tried to visit him in prison shortly before her death.
- Overly Long Name: Oliver's half-brother, Lucius Marcus Julius Augustus Octavius Remus Marius Swanborough, qualifies for this.
- Quintessential British Gentleman: Lord Issac Harrington is one of these.
- Red Herring: As this is a partially a mystery novel, there are a number of individuals who serve as red herrings. Namely, anyone who had the opportunity to plant the stolen watch on Oliver during the ball, such as Dunham, Cora, Hannah and Lucius.
- Parental Substitute: Spurgeon serves as a surrogate father for Oliver.
- Platonic Life-Partners: Harrington and Spurgeon are a pair of these. [[spoiler: Zigzagged when they end up becoming romantically involved near the end of the novel.
- Period Piece: The book is naturally one of these, as a novel set in Victorian England.
- Posthumous Character: By the time the novel begins, the Winslow siblings' parents, Morgana and Caspar, are already deceased and appear only in flashback. Lucy, the youngest Winslow sibling, also died in infancy, and Oliver reflects on her early loss regularly throughout the story.
- Prison Changes People: Oliver leaves Flitwith Prison heavily traumatized and with a fear of the dark. Subverted, however, by the fact that it failed to rid him of the kleptomania that landed him in prison to begin with.
- Prisoner's Work: Oliver spent a fair amount of his time at Flitwith pulling ropes apart by hand and digging up bushes.
- Scullery Maid: This is Kittie's role at the Harrington Estate.
- Sexy Discretion Shot: There are a handful of love scenes between Oliver and Kittie in the novel, but none of them are particularly detailed and most of the act itself is glossed over.
- Shipper on Deck: Simon and Cora serve as this for Kittie/Oliver. Averted by Evelyn, who is decidedly against the relationship until the end of the novel.
- Shout-Out: The narration mentions that Oliver has left a copy of The String of Pearls (better known these days as Sweeney Todd'' on the magazine table in the barbershop.
- Spoiled Sweet: Hannah Harrington.
- Stern Old Judge: The judge who sentenced Oliver to his time in jail is depicted as one of these.
- Sticky Fingers: Oliver is a kleptomaniac.
- Successful Sibling Syndrome: Oliver feels like a failure compared to his siblings, Evelyn and Winston.
- Taking the Bullet: In the climax, Evelyn leaps in front of a shot aimed at Kittie, which thankfully only hits her in the shoulder.
- The Butler Did It: Played 100% straight, as the villain of the novel and the one who planted a stolen watch on Oliver is Lord Harrington's butler, Leslie Barry.
- The Dutiful Son: This is the role Winston played in the Winslow family when they were children, and the sense of responsibility for their collective well-being clearly extends to the present.
- Uncle Pennybags: Lucius serves as this for Oliver and the rest of the Winslow Family.
- Unknowingly Possessing Stolen Goods: When Oliver returns home from Lord Harrington's party, proud of himself for not taking anything, he discovers that Harrington's missing watch has been planted in his pocket.
- Uptown Girl: This describes the relationship between Cora and Hannah. It also arguably applies to Oliver and Kittie, since Oliver comes from a middle-class merchant family while Kittie's family raised her in relative squalor.
