Tag: general silliness

The Executioner Makes House Calls (‘Oy, Rodney’) REPRINT

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

a gripping page-turner headed for the top of the NY Times bestseller list | Romance novels, Funny romance, Book parody

From October 29, 2023

 

[If that ain’t the best headline I ever wrote, I’ll eat my hat.]

“Dear reader,” says Violet Crepuscular, introducing Chapter DCLXXXIII (No, we do not know what happened to Chapter DCLXXXII) of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, “you may have heard that confession is good for the soul. But Willis Twombley could tell you that sometimes it’s not too good for the rest of you!” [You have no idea how hard it was to restrain her from stretching this sentence out to the fringes of the solar system. You want to be an editor!? I could’ve been a tire salesman…]

It turns out that Parliament has just passed a law forbidding anyone to feed cat food to a Church of England vicar. That is exactly what Willis Twombley has done, and word of it has spread like yogurt. (Don’t ask!) The new law carries a death penalty, although in this case the victim can receive the treatment at home.

“Hadn’t you better move on, old chap, before the traveling executioner gets here?” asks Lord Jeremy Coldsore.

“What–and miss the wedding?” Both men are to be married to Lady Margo Cargo, who believes them to be one and the same person. “Anyhow, there ain’t nothin’ easier than bribin’ an executioner to say he did the job when he didn’t.”

But what if this executioner doesn’t take a bribe?

“Tune in next week to find out!” writes The Queen of Suspense. “The day you can’t bribe a traveling executioner with a box of toothpaste sandwiches… well, it’s the day the music dies!”

Roller Derby Comes to Scurveyshire REPRINT

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

From March 7, 2021

Who has time to worry about medieval curses when roller derby is coming to your town?

In Chapter CDIX of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, the populace of Scurveyshire has worked feverishly to set up a roller derby rink on the village common, where the Plaguesby Headhunters will take on the Vichy Poisoners, France’s number one roller derby squad, in a match that promises to be an all-out war.

Meanwhile, the ancient curse, activated by Lady Margo Cargo when she dug up a prehistoric plate with an inscription which she has wrongly interpreted as a recipe for Store Brand Corn Flakes, has been taking its toll: a hangnail here, a dislocated coccyx there, a bad set of involuntary ear-wiggling somewhere else.

But Lord Jeremy Coldsore is otherwise occupied, re-wooing Lady Margo and trying to get their upcoming marriage back on track.

“I can’t help having second thoughts,” says Lady Margo. “You’ve been acting very queer lately, when you’re Willis Twombley. Threatening to shoot me–what kind of fiance does that?”

Ms. Crepuscular intervenes. In an aside to her audience, she writes, “I have a letter from a reader in Palookastan, Mrs. Amy Tanystropheus, who asks, ‘Wouldn’t it have made more sense for Lord Jeremy to have explained to Lady Margo, months and months ago, that he and Mr. Twombley are not the same person? Wouldn’t that have eliminated all this confusion?’

“Well, Amy,” Violet replies, “I’m afraid that ship has sailed! It’s much too late now to clear up that matter. Lady Margo is entirely convinced that Jeremy and Willis are one person, albeit with two totally different personalities. And did I mention that multiple personalities are kind of a tradition in Lady Margo’s family? Her father, Lord Largo Cargo, had four personalities, none of which was functional.

“But even matters of the heart must take a back seat to roller derby!”

Ah! But will the curse adversely affect the roller derby match?

Stay tuned!

What is Roller Derby - Minnesota Roller Derby

Victorian roller derby uniforms were much less revealing than these.

Byron Tackles ‘Oy, Rodney’ REPRINT

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

See the source image

G’day, everybody! Byron the Quokka here, with Chapter CCCXLII of Violet Crepuscular’s epic romance, Oy, Rodney.

[Nothing is written for an hour, to indicate an hour going by.]

What the dickens is this? Something about some unemployed shepherd with d damaged coccyx, and these twins, the Pottery sisters, Febrile and Facile. Come on, now! What kind of names are those? And I don’t want to know how to make twinkies with a toothpaste filling!

Y’know, that guy Unknowable had the right idea: wait till the Old Man’s better, and let him deal with this. By Jove, I’ll run contests for him till we’re both blue in the face, but trying to read and make sense of Oy, Rodney is just not on the cards for me. Just the one chapter that I read–sort of!–was enough to make my own coccyx hurt–and I don’t have one!

Management will endeavor to restore normal service as soon as management stops feeling like death warmed over.

 

A Readers’ Revolt (‘Oy, Rodney’) REPRINT

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

39 Romance novel cover parodies ideas | romance novel covers, romance, book humor

From March 20, 2022

Violet Crepuscular unleashed a storm of controversy with Chapter CDLXX of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, in which she asserted that a supernatural being in the form of Mickey Mouse dwelt in the cellar of the hovel inhabited by Mr. Bigcheeks, lineal descendant of the medieval sorcerer, Black Rodney.

“I have unleashed a storm of controversy with Chapter CDLXX of my epic romance, Oy, Rodney,” she writes. “The proles out there think Mr. Bigcheeks’ paranormal unexplained familiar is Mickey Mouse.

“Morons! Heretics! Do they think that I, the Queen of Suspense, do not know that Mickey Mouse did not exist in the Victorian Era? Do they think that I think some guy from Disney World was fomping around Mr. Bigcheeks’ cellar in a Mickey Mouse costume?”

She confesses that she has been snowed under with mail from readers objecting to her use of such a glaring anachronism–angry letters and emails from as far away as Solitude Island in the Russian Arctic, and the desolation that is Kerguelen Island in the South Atlantic. Or wherever it is.

“My sainted monkey!” she continues. “Haven’t these widget-cobblers figured out that if things can be sucked under the vicar’s backyard wading pool… things can also come out from under it? Do they presume to know exactly what kind of things–and beings!–can be spewed into our world from underneath the pool?

“And would they trust me, the Queen of Suspense, to provide a totally rational explanation for the apparent appearance [she’s on a roll] of Mickey Mouse in Victorian England? Heck, no! They just want to complain!”

Disney Mickey Mouse - Emmy Awards, Nominations and Wins | Television Academy

“I’ll get them for this,” Ms. Crepuscular adds. How she proposes to do that is a secret. “They’ll wish they were walled up in the Great Pyramid with Old King Cole, by the time I’m done with ’em.” We spare the reader any further fulminations. If you really want to read the whole thing, she’s scrawled it on the rest room wall at Jolly Cholly’s Ham House.

Violet Wins an Award! REPRINT

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

🤩 Suspenders For Women: How To Wear? [Female Outfits, Tips] 2022🤩

From August 1, 2022

Violet Crepuscular, author of the epic romance Oy, Rodney and self-anointed “Queen of Suspense,” now has a real title to hang on her wall.The Brmytsov suspender factory in Vorozhnyrmytz, Kazakhstan, has honored her as “Queen of Suspenders.” [Note: the model in the pictures is not Ms. Crepuscular.]

Ms. Crepuscular has declined to comment, although neighbors say they have heard her “yelling and breaking things.” “Queen of suspense, not suspenders!” she has reportedly exclaimed. “I don’t even wear suspenders!” [Lewd expletives deleted.]

A dinner will be held in Ms. Crepuscular’s honor at the Restaurant of Tasty Joy, on the skirts of Myzhnytskquoe Mountain.

A Few Products That Didn’t Quite Make It REPRINT

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

 From August 16, 2016

I know it’s too early to be talking Christmas shopping. But there are always birthdays, anniversaries, and other occasions for buying presents for your loved ones.

Here are a few gift ideas that never really caught on.

The Fire Ant Farm. This was just like a regular ant farm, only with ferocious and painfully-stinging fire ants. It was supposed to make the owner look cool. They had to take it off the market because the ants kept getting out and raising hell.

A Special Beer Stein for Weight-Lifters had a 20-pound weight fixed to the bottom so that every time you took a swig of beer, you got your exercise. I’m not sure how this product came to fail. I think it was because sometimes bad things happened if you chanced to drop it.

Toothpaste Sandwich Cookies. If you were afraid that Oreos, for instance, would cause you to develop cavities, replacing the vanilla cream filling with a popular brand of toothpaste was supposed to allow you to enjoy your snack while at the same time passively brushing your teeth. Alas, the taste and the digestion became issues.

Sticky-Soled Shoes. The idea behind these was to let you pick up and remove dirt, dust, and pet hairs from your carpet without having to vacuum. Just walk around as usual, and at the end of the day, simply remove the detritus from the bottoms of your shoes. I am sorry to say they made these shoes way, way, way too sticky, with unfortunate results (including injury to the wearer when he tried to take a step but the shoe wouldn’t budge). Sort of like the classic practical joke of gluing someone’s flip-flops to the floor. Worse, some ill-advised customers attempted to use Sticky Shoes as a way to climb up walls, again resulting in injury.

So there you have it. These products aren’t on the market anymore, but there are probably others just as bad. Let the buyer beware.

 

Violet Crepuscular’s Mail Bag REPRINT

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

silly romance novels – Lee Duigon

From December 5, 2021

Taking a break from the narrative of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, Violet Crepuscular finds time to read and share this year’s fan letter.

“This is from a Mrs. Citronella Jingles in Brushback, New Jersey. I looked it up, and there really is no such places!” impermeates Ms. Crepuscular. (I am not sure about that word.) “And she writes, ‘Why don’t the men persons in your romance go around with no shirts on like the men persons in all the other romances?’

“Well, Citronella,” Violet replies, “if you ever saw my neighbor, Mr. Pitfall, with no shirt on, it’d put you off the whole business for months. Yew! A horrible sight! Yeah, okay, it’d be nice if the men we see had those completely hairless torsos bulging with muscles–but then no one would bother to read romance novels if real life was like that!”

Privately, I don’t think she knows what to do. Having brought in both a hydra and a jackalope, and handed out injuries and conniptions galore, not to mention property damage–all she needs now is Godzilla.

“All I need now is Godzilla!” she confides in the reader. “The don’t call me the Queen of Suspense for nothing! I defy you to name another romance writer who dares to bring monsters into the plot! Like, who can be bothered with men with no shirts when a jackalope is gobbling up your garden?”

I believe she has escaped having to write Chapter CDLVI.

REPRINT Fantasy by Y.B. Sane Already Rated Best of 21st Century

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

From February 5, 2015

New York Times best-selling author Y.B. Sane has done it again: his newest Young Adults fantasy, The Spiritual Spirits, is a triumph.

Join Rubella, the 9-year-old Invincible Female Warrior, as she slashes and thrusts and kung-fus her way through rank after rank of able-bodied adult male bad guys in her quest to save the world called Oith from sure destruction.

And if that weren’t enough, the publishers, Coldsore Books, have provided a game and contests accessible via a special website you can find out about after you buy a copy of The Spiritual Spirits. You can also, on the website, discover your own Spiritual Magic Number, which will prevent anything  bad from ever happening to you.

But it’s the story that’s really compelling. An evil conspiracy called The Choich has vowed to conquer all Oith and then destroy it. Their first attack wiped out all but scattered opposition. These few brave souls have rallied around the wise, loveable sorceress, Genderama, and, guided by her loveable wisdom, have identified the young Rubella as a spiritual powerhouse able to give the Choich a dose of its own medicine.

We especially marveled at her many rescues of her 21-year-old male soul-mate, Loola, whose penchant for swooning makes him easy prey for the enemy. However, Loola is able to tap into the Power of the Earth Spirit–but to tell you any more would be to spoil it.

The American Library Assn. has already named The Spiritual Spirits one of its Top Ten Young Adult Fiction Novels of the millenium.

Is ‘The Lying Tart’ Haunted? REPRINT

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Image result for Silly Romance Novels

From March 1, 2020

Forget Chapter CCCXLVII. I already have.

In Chapter CCCXLVIII of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, Violet Crespuscular takes us to Scurveyshire’s favorite tavern, The Lying Tart, which is said to have acquired a resident ghost. It has been seen by many patrons while availing themselves of the tavern’s commodious outdoor facilities (“I cannot bring myself to write the word ‘outhouse,'” Ms. Crepuscular confesses).

The apparition takes the form of a headless lady in a flowing white gown , sometimes accompanied by a huge black dog named Chips. She has been seen walking between the tavern and the stables, parading back and forth along the edge of the roof, or skipping directly toward the observer, carrying her head like a basketball. The game of basketball has not yet been invented. She always vanishes just before getting close enough to grab you.

Constable Chumley investigates. His report is grim. “Thy flivven craiths yon cocksie fairn,” he reports grimly. Lord Jeremy Coldsore, justice of the peace, takes notes.

“What’s he sayin’, ol’ hoss?” wonders the American adventurer, Willis Twombley.

“He says she doesn’t have a coccyx,” Jeremy translates. “That’s bad!” mutters Twombley.

Trade at The Lying Tart has begun to fall off, threatening the shire’s economy. It is widely believed that The Lady in White is looking for company. No one wants to be that company.

“This is the work of Black Rodney,” opines Johnno the Merry Minstrel, who is somewhat merrier now that his gizzard has grown back. His opinion is confirmed by the discovery of several cuss-bags in the landlord’s stock of ale. The landlord has tried to cut his losses by offering free beer to the first customer who succeeds in having a conversation with the ghost.

Here Ms. Crepuscular breaks in with a recipe for toothpaste-flavored biscuits. It is clear she doesn’t know what to do about the ghost.

 

Coldsore Hall’s New Roof REPRINT

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Image result for images of silly romance novels

888

Invoking a little-known law enacted in the year 636 by the Saxon warlord Bobby the Nit, Lord Jeremy Coldsore has drafted Professor Saltinus Facehead’s Egyptian diggers to put a new roof on Coldsore Hall. So begins Chapter CCCXLVI of Violet Crepuscular’s epic romance, Oy, Rodney.

Constable Chumley explains the law to Prof. Facehead.

“In yon fillid wi’ King Bobby,” he says, “we fraith the bowyers aw’ mickle groith.” The professor nods sagely, although the constable’s quaint rural dialect eludes his best efforts to understand what has been said. He replies in archaic Portuguese. It is the constable’s turn to nod sagely.

Although the diggers speak no English, and their Arabic is not that hot, either, they throw themselves enthusiastically into their work and in a mere two days, Coldsore Hall has a new roof. The entire population of Scurveyshire assembles to admire it.

See the source image

“It’s a miracle!” gushes Lady Margo Cargo. “I wish they’d do my roof like that!”

But when a moderate breeze springs up, the new roof seems to take wing and fly off toward the sunset. It will take some doing to get it back.

Here Ms. Crepuscular breaks in to report on the status of her Pulitzer Prize nomination, filed by her excitable neighbor, Mr. Pitfall.

“I am afraid Mr. Pitfall made an error and submitted the nomination to something called the Patzer Prize Committee,” she writes. “This group hands out prizes for poorly-played chess games. I cannot explain why they have decided to award a special prize to my epic romance, Oy, Rodney.”

The prize awarded is a rusty wheelbarrow. “I’ll have to find space for it on my mantle, somehow,” Ms. Crepuscular says. “It’s going to change the whole look of my living room. Given Mr. Pitfall’s current state of excitement, I dare do nothing else.”

Here the chapter breaks off for want, she admits, of inspiration.