Tag: silly romance novels

When Hell Really Did Freeze Over (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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Violet Crepuscular, the Queen of Suspense, has issued a warning to readers preparing to tackle Chapter DXXX of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney.

“I wish to warn readers preparing to tackle Chapter DXXX of my epic romance, Oy, Rodney,” she writes, sounding more than a little like the rejected version of Gilgamesh. “Honestly, this chapter is not for the faint-hearted! After hearing just two paragraphs of it, poor Mr. Pitfall fainted.”

Was there something about a monster in the vicar’s backyard wading pool? Was there a reason why everything in Scurveyshire froze but the surface of the pool?

“We must first repair to Constable Chumley’s house,” she continues. If that’s the verb for it. “Here he has forgotten how to tie his shoes. And who can he ask? What a dilemma!”

What bunk. What about the monster in the pool? No wonder this book is DXXX chapters long!

In her own defense, Ms. Crepuscular writes, “It is, of course, The Frothing Dragon of Scurveyshire coming back to life as the result of a medieval curse laid on the shire by the evil necromancer, Black Rodney. But the characters in my story don’t know this! I’ll have to break it to them gently.”

She’s hoping we don’t notice that nothing has happened in this chapter. As for the title, you guess is as good as mine.

The Mystery of the Vicar’s Wading Pool (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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“As any schoolboy might expect,” writes Violet Crepuscular, the Queen of Suspense, in Chapter DXXVIII of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, “Scurveyshire has its share of cold snaps!” The exclamation point is added to make it more suspenseful. Read all about in in Violet Crepuscular’s manual, How to Write Good ($22.98 plus postage).

Ah! But what no one expects is that during this horribly cold snap, the water in the Vicar’s backyard wading pool has not frozen over! (More suspense.) And late that chilly night, peering out her bedroom window with binoculars to see if anyone is daft enough to be running around with no clothes on, Lady Margo Cargo, sweeping her lenses back and forth over the forbidding arctic landscape, suddenly spots the ungainly monstrous head of a monster popping up from the water in the middle of the pool. But when she sweeps back, the head is gone… with only a few baseball cards left floating on the surface.

If only the telephone had been invented already! She could roust Constable Chumley out of bed to come over and investigate. She could rouse her crusty butler, Crusty, but he has threatened to shoot her if she wakes him. You can only get so much mileage out of being the richest widow in Scurveyshire.

Here the chapter ends abruptly, doubtless to build suspense. Please don’t ask what happened to Chapter DXXVII. There are some things mankind was never meant to know.

Killer Bare-Faced Hornets Blitz Scurveyshire (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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

“I have always felt,” writes Violet Crepuscular, introducing Chapter DXXVI of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, “that no epic romance is worth its salt without a massive invasion of terrifying, lethal insects. Like these… the infamous bare-faced hornet–”

Wait! Stop! Foul! [Cue harshly blowing referee’s whistle] What’s with the killer insects? Last week it was The Seven Sleepers of Scurvey Forest–you promised to wrap that up, didn’t you? (I am on the point of resigning as her editor.) D’you know what I’d say to you, if we were face to face? “I’m on the point of resigning as your editor!” That’s what I’d say.

[Enter new editor who knows nothing about Oy, Rodney and doesn’t care. He wants to be a steeplechase jockey, once he loses that extra 150 pounds.]

We take up the chapter with Johnno the Merry Minstrel  wandering through the forest, singing a madrigal about Davy Crockett. The Seven Sleepers have already been awakened and turned to dust. It happened too fast to be described. [The new editor lets her get away with this.] Johnno intends to compose a new madrigal about Davy Crockett and the Seven Sleepers. He already has a working title for it: Davy Crockett and the Seven Sleepers.

“Well, that’s about all I’ve had time to write this week,” the Queen of Suspense confides in her readers. At last count there were twelve of them. “Trust me, I haven’t forgotten about the rhinoceros cocoon! But the tale must be told in orderly stages.”

Lord Jeremy’s Moment of Truth (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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“I wrote this chapter in advance, some 12 or 13 years ago…” So Violet Crepuscular, the Queen of Suspense, gets out of doing any work on Christmas Day. I’m only here to get a laugh.

This serves as Chapter DXXIV of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney. Let Violet herself induct you into its ventricles (I just work here).

“Once a year, on the day after Christmas,” writes Ms. Crepuscular, “Lord Jeremy Coldsore treats himself to a shave and a haircut at the atelier of M. Philippe Guignol, known affectionately as Cheap Philippe.” The shire’s regular barber’s nickname is “That Butcher.” There will be no time for this, once the rhino eggs hatch.

Dr. Weezle, in the meantime, has just come out of hibernation only to find that he slept through the summer and has awakened just in time for winter. He makes a beeline to Cheap Philippe. He very badly needs a shave.

“I got trampled and gored by a rhinoceros,” Lord Jeremy reveals. They have been placed in adjacent chairs. Philippe doesn’t like his customers to communicate in any way, so the conversation stops. Philippe is not the kind of man you argue with.

“Make sure you catch the next chapter!” Ms. Crepuscular adds. “I promise it’ll have you talking to yourselves!”

Is that good or bad?

Ms. Crepuscular Gets Lost (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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“A writer must never allow herself to be distracted,” declares Violet Crepuscular, the Queen of Suspense. This is because she has lost track of what chapter she’s writing in her epic romance, Oy, Rodney.

“Really, it was Mr. Pitfall’s fault,” she writes, blaming the whole thing on her neighbor. “You know the man is hopelessly in love with me. He used one of my recipes to bake me a batch of what were supposed to be toothpaste-filled cupcakes. I ate one–and the next three days are now a total blank to me!”

So she has settled on No. DXXIII for the chapter she is currently writing. Let’s see… The rhinoceros has spun a cocoon behind Dr. Weezle’s tool shed, the royal handwriting inspector has come and gone… and Constable Chumley has auditioned for the title role in the Scurveyshire Players’ production of Hamlet.

That’s how “To be or not to be” turns into “Ay wee yearnted far thither.”

Potrick the Jovial Shepherd (there are two jovial shepherds in Scurveyshire) thinks the constable should write his memoirs. He is also working on his imitation of Alan Hale, the American movie actor who has yet to be born. Potrick is good at things like that.

The Impetuous Dr. Weezle (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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

Violet Crepuscular stunned the romance world last week by introducing a new character into her epic romance, Oy, Rodney. “I have introduced a new character into my epic romance, Oy Rodney,” Ms. Crepuscular writes.

None other than Dr. Weezle! The rhinoceros spun her cocoon behind his chicken coop. (Trust me, you will never find another sentence quite like that one.)

“This is a corrascible problem!” groans Lord Jeremy Coldsore, still recovering from the trampling he got two weeks ago. Overcome by pity, Constable Chumley has made room for Lord Jeremy in his coal bin. Riotous servants won’t let Jeremy back into his ancestral home.

And then there’s Dr. Weezle–or, to give him his full name, Dr. Emrys Chrysanthemum Weezle, M.D., Ph. D., M.B.E., G.O.P., Q.C. Arctic explorer in his youth. Author of This Here House Full of Nitwits. Destined to be almost knighted for the part he almost played in the Boxer Rebellion.

What role does he play in this story?

“Don’t rush me!” snaps Ms. Crepuscular. “I don’t just write romance and suspense, you know. I am trying to make toothpaste candy canes for Mr. Pitfall’s Christmas party. If you had any idea how delicate and fustulent a job that is, you’d just shut up and go away!”

I know of no other author who tells her readers to go away.

 

The Day They Stopped the World… in Scurveyshire (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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

For one day of the year, every year, without fail, everything stops in Scurveyshire. Just comes to a total halt.

For this is the day the Royal Handwriting Inspector visits Scurveyshire to inspect everyone’s handwriting. It is an ancient custom going back to the days of the otherwise forgotten Anglo-Saxon king, Herb Meyer.

All right, inspection’s over–everybody back to work!

“These local traditions are incrostical,” writes author Violet Crepuscular, glossing over her failure to provide a Chapter DXXI for her epic romance, Oy, Rodney. “Back in Henry XI’s time, anyone who failed to pass the handwriting inspection was denied the use of a sandbox.”

Anyway, the only thing that happened while this stupid inspection was going on was that the rhinoceros spun her cocoon behind Dr. Weezle’s chicken coop and is now dormant. And spies from Babylon, unfamiliar with the customs of rural England, stuck out like sore thumbs because they continued working while everyone else stopped–so it was no difficult matter for Willis Twombley to shoot them after the inspectors left.

Wait’ll all those rhino eggs hatch, though! They don’t call Violet the Queen of Suspense for nothing. She pays them to do it.

Chaos at Coldsore Hall! (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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

In Chapter DXVIII of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, Violet Crepuscular, the Queen of Suspense, told us how Lord Jeremy Coldsore, locked out of his ancestral hall by roistering servants who think it’s still the 18th century, fell off his perch and was gored and trampled by a rhinoceros. All 213 bones in his body were broken. “That will teach him to try and evolve wings,” writes Ms. Crepuscular.

A week later he’s up and around. The American adventurer, Willis Twombley, who thinks he’s Sargon of Akkad, has used his six-gun to re-instill decorum in those wild and crazy servants. “Jist leave it to me, Germy,” quoth Willis. He needs to shoot only two of the servants before the others get the message.

This is all told in Chapter DXX. Chapter DXIX is too puerile and improbable to be reproduced here. Even Violet thinks so. “I have written a chapter too puerile and improbable to be reproduced here,” she writes. Send her a check for $3.98 and she’ll send you a summary of the chapter.

Meanwhile the rhinoceros, having laid several clutches of eggs, is now preparing to spin a cocoon in which to spend the winter. It will be a rather large cocoon.

 

Ms. Crepuscular’s Revenge–and a Lesson in Evolution (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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Introducing Chapter DXVIII of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, Violet Crepuscular writes, “Well, we visited Johnno the Merry Minstrel in the hospital on Wednesday and I need hardly describe the occasion. Let us move on with the story!”

Lord Jeremy is still up a tree, menaced by a rhinoceros below. In yonder Coldsore Hall, they’re having a wild party and no one wants to go out and help the poor sod in the sauerbratten tree. But Jeremy has hit upon a novel solution to his predicament.

“I shall evolve!” he confides in the reader, bypassing the author altogether. “I am not going to do whatever Violet Crepuscular says I should do anymore! I shall evolve a pair of wings and merrily fly off to another tree–and so long, Mr. Rhino!” To get the evolutionary process started, he begins to flap his arms.

Oops!

These exertions cause Jeremy to fall out of the tree. Instantly the rhino jumps on him, then thrusts him through with its horn, tosses him twenty feet into the air (a nasty fall, that!), sits on him, runs over him 15 or 20 times, and then wanders off to lay some more eggs.

Jeremy rises with a groan. It’s no use complaining to me, I didn’t write this schleck. I think Ms. Crepuscular’s intent was to teach her fictional characters a lesson.

Desperately wounded, Lord Jeremy crawls to the front door of Coldsore Hall and tries to whisper through the mail slot…

Trust the Queen of Suspense to leave you hanging there.

 

Treed by a Wild Rhinoceros (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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No publisher has ever asked Violet Crepuscular, “Write us a Thomas Harris! But you’ll still be paid like a Violet Crepuscular.” But what does she care? She has incriminating photos of the publisher.

Turn we unto Chapter DXVII of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, and we find Lord Jeremy Coldsore still unable to get into Coldsore Hall. His servants all make like they don’t know who he is. They are having a wild party. And now the poor devil’s up a tree–

Literally: he has been chased up a tree by the same rhinoceros that’s been burrowing under the vicar’s backyard wading pool and laying eggs in his phlox bed. Ms. Crepuscular takes great pains to describe the tree and include botanical notes–but who are we to criticize the Queen of Suspense? I think it’s supposed to be something called a West Indian Sauerbratten Tree.

The rhinoceros overturns a tool shed and lays a clutch of 15 eggs where the edger used to be. Out of the main house charges Johnno the Merry Minstrel.

“Beast!” he jallops. “Knock over my patron’s tool shed, will you?” He has forgotten how large and dangerous a rhinoceros can be. We shall join him, in the next chapter, at the hospital.

[Postscript by Ms. Crepuscular: My use of the word “jallop” has been called into question. But I do not argue with ignormuses.]