Tag: silly romance novels

Roller Derby Comes to Scurveyshire REPRINT

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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

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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

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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 Crepuscular vs. Joe Collidge (‘Oy, Rodney’) REPRINT

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

(Editor’s Note: We had no Internet on Friday, not till suppertime, so there was no Joe Collidge post for that week. He threatened to break his toys unless I gave him some space.)

From August 11, 2024

 

I amb Out-Rayed!!! Imadgine!! Plublishing some stopid Rowmants insted of Socile Jutstus!! {Paragraph blacked out]

Didjiu sea “that”!”!” Thay sensered “me”!!! This heer it “is” toetully Crayzy!!!!! You doughnt senser Pro-Grestives!!!!!!!! Evvry boddy knows That!!!!!

[Enter Ms. Crepuscular. ‘Out, damned spot’ to Joe. ]

Introducing Chapter DCCXL of her interminable romance novel, Oy, Rodney, Violet Crepuscular, The Queen of Suspense, has a bit of a fume.

“What does he mean, taking some of my space and giving it to that blithering idiot?” she demands. “Hello! Hello! I’m trying to write a novel here! Mr. Pudding and his newts–what do they care for inane American politics?

This was the chapter, she declares, in which we were supposed to find out what some of the June Taylor Dancers are doing in Scurvey Forest–and what Lord Jeremy Coldsore and Constable Chumley are going to do about it.

“I am going to hunt down this Joe Collidge nincompoop and have Mr. Pitfall break his arms!” Ms. Crepuscular writes. “How’s that for higher education!”

Violet Crepuscular’s Mail Bag REPRINT

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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.

Ye Olde Fox Hunt (‘Oy, Rodney’) REPRINT

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silly romance novels – Lee Duigon

From May 22, 2022

A letter from reader Ambrose Twidgeon in Babbo Township, Pellucidar, has served as a timely reminder to the Queen of Suspense, Violet Crepuscular.

“Dear Ms. Crepuscular,” the letter reads, “what ever happened to the traditional olde English fox hunt in Scurveyshire? How can you write about English country life without the fox hunt? I am so upset with you, I had to break my model airplanes!”

Ms. Crepuscular’s reply is found in her introduction to Chapter CDLXXXVIII of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney.

“As a matter of fact,” she trombolizes, “I was just about to write about the fox hunt when Mr. Twidgeon’s letter arrived. Really, I do not need any guidance in writing romance novels! Let me offer this friendly reminder to Mr. Twidgeon: Get lost!”

The hereditary master of the Scurveyshire Hunt is Lady Margo Cargo, who inherited it from her father along with a persistent halitosis. She can’t ride a horse, so she leads the hunt in a golf cart driven by a condemned prisoner. No fox has been caught since Lady Margo took over.

(What about the Scurveyshire Fair, Violet? And the vicar’s backyard wading pool?)

“If I get any more friendly reminders from ignoramuses who think they know how I should write my novels, I am very much afraid that I shall lose my temper,” Ms. Crepuscular writes. So vanishes all hope of finding out about the fair and the wading pool. She’s in one of her moods.

The chapter ends without the fox hunt actually starting.

Is ‘The Lying Tart’ Haunted? REPRINT

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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

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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.

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“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.

By Popular Demand: The Queen’s Not There Yet OY RODNEY REPRINT

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From December 21. 2017

All right, everybody, you asked for it: another installment of Oy, Rodney by Violet Crepuscular: Chapter CIV.

As Lady Margo tries to find out who is Queen of England at this time, Princess Didi visits Scurveyshire incognito to get the lay of the land. When she approaches the wading pool in the vicar’s back yard, Constable Chumley promptly arrests her. “Ye come alang wi’ me, lass,” he says, “ye’ll not be wilmin’ by yon brawnnick gulsen.”

“You fool, take your hands off the daughter of the Queen!” Her protests are to no avail, and she is deposited in the local lockup.

Meanwhile Lord Jeremy Coldsore, awaiting his marriage to Lady Margo, fobs off his creditors with a promise that the Queen herself will pay his bills. “Her Majesty is to be an honored guest at my wedding, and will spend the night in the Royal Suite of Coldsore Hall.” He does not mention that no one has spent the night in the Royal Suite of Coldsore Hall since 1603, when the Duke of Dobley went in one night and never came out.

Having convinced Lady Margo that he and the American adventurer Willis Twombley are one and the same and that it therefore doesn’t matter which one of them appears at the wedding as the groom, Lord Jeremy’s peace of mind is rattled by Twombley’s off-hand question: “Say, Germy, was you really jist a foundling left on the steps of this here hall? Margo says so.”

This is the first Lord Jeremy has ever heard of it. “I am sure the lady has me confused with someone else,” he replies.

“Someone else besides me?”

“Please, Sargon!” Twombley believes he is Sargon of Akkad. “Please concentrate on the arrangements for the wedding! I’m growing rather concerned about the vicar. Ever since recovering from his conniptions, he skips everywhere instead of walking, and makes cryptic remarks about some writhing tentacles he thinks he saw under the pool. I fear his mind may be unsettled.”

“Oh, he’ll be all right for the wedding,” Twombley says. “Anyhow, it’s your turn to go to Margo’s tonight for supper. Try to be cheerful, ol’ hoss! Soon as the Queen gets here, we’re goin’ to get hitched and all your troubles will be over.”

Given the prodigious length of the rest of the book, we are at liberty to doubt the accuracy of that prediction.

And we still don’t know who the dickens “Rodney” is.

That Business with the Mob of Peasants (‘Oy, Rodney’) REPRINT

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From June 2, 2019

 

Introducing Chapter CCXCIV of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, Violet Crepuscular confides in her readers, “Let me confide in you, dear readers! I do wish Mr. Duigon had not said I was ‘in jail’! I was merely helping the police with their inquiries. They are trying to discover who, if anyone, poisoned Mr. Pitfall, and they now suspect everyone in the neighborhood–he is that unpopular. I hope they realize now that my toothpaste rolls couldn’t make anybody that sick!” She is a little miffed that none of the police officers was willing to try one himself.

Moving on to the chapter, she describes the grief and horror that overwhelmed all Scurvyshire when Mr. Percy Puce, F.R.S., the shire’s Resident Genius, disappeared below the vicar’s backyard wading pool as the result of a fall from a clandestine sliding board. Don’t ask me if that’s a suitable adjective for a sliding board. I just work here.

Provoked beyond measure, a mob of peasants armed with torches and pitchforks assembles at The Lying Tart. Why they should want torches in broad daylight is mystifying. Maybe it’s just a thing that mobs of peasants do.

“We’ll destroy the vicar’s wading pool if it’s the last thing we do!” vows the mob’s ringleader, button collecter Oswald Backdraft, Official Ringleader of the Peasants Benevolent Association. The mob rushes off to the vicar’s back yard and that’s the last anybody sees of them.

Hours later, word of the incident reaches Lord Jeremy Coldsore at Coldsore Hall, where they have just put the Marquess of Grone to bed.

“We’re going to run out of peasants at this rate!” ejaculates Lord Jeremy. (“It’s a perfectly permissible use of that verb!” insists Ms. Crepuscular. I just work here.) “Constable Chumley, you ought to have prevented this disaster!”

“Huish, M’lord, I deagle fair maundery this fleethin’,” parries the constable. He rushes off to The Lying Tart to see if he can find any clues at the bottom of a tankard of ale.

This still leaves five chapters, I think, to be written before catching up to Chapter CCC, which Ms. Crepuscular has written out of order. “I pledge myself to accomplish this,” she writes in a chapter-ending footnote, “provided I am left in peace!”