Tag: silly romance novels

Lord Jeremy’s Love Triangle REPRINT

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From February 11, 2018

This is supposedly Chapter CXXXI of Violet Crepuscular’s epic romance, Oy, Rodney, but I couldn’t swear to it.

The wandering spider collector, Miss Lizzie Snivel, has taken to hanging around Lord Jeremy Coldsore’s driveway lemonade stand and frightening the customers by trying to give them spiders.

“Want me to shoot her for you, Germy?” asks Willis Twombley, the American adventurer. He has been methodically picking off Lord Jeremy’s creditors, one by one. The most recent victim, this morning, he has concealed in Coldsore Hall’s infamous Haunted Bedroom.

“Rather you didn’t, old boy.”

The problem here is that Miss Lizzie is dazzlingly beautiful, except for the unsightly ruin of her nose, where she was once bitten by an Australian Venomous Horror Spider named Jeff. She has fallen in love with Lord Jeremy and can’t bear to be away from him. He finds it very flattering.

The Japanese ambassador makes another cameo appearance here, but no one wants him.

“Lady Margo ain’t gonna like yer flirtin’ with that spider gal,” Twombley warns. “If’n she gits word of it, she might not marry us. There ain’t nothin’ as jealous as a woman with a wooden leg. Believe me, I know!”

“If only she wouldn’t keep trying to sneak into Coldsore Hall at night!” cries Jeremy. Against his will, her persistence is beginning to win her over. Unknown to everyone, Miss Lizzie has amassed a colossal fortune by collecting spiders. She has not yet mentioned this.

“Lady Margo been tryin’ to sneak in? What’s wrong with that?” wonders Twombley.

“Not Lady Margo, old boy! It’s that spider girl. She won’t take no for an answer.”

Meanwhile a loud brawl breaks out in the taproom of the Lying Tart that night between villagers who believe Black Rodney is a dangerous sorcerer returned from the dead to put curses on the shire, and those who are convinced he is a kind of catfish. Constable Chumley restores order with a speech that no one understands. It is not reproduced here. “I am afraid his language is not what it should be,” Ms. Crepuscular confides in her readers.

A Romantic Romance–‘Oy Rodney’ REPRINT

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silly romance novels – Lee Duigon

 

 

 

From December 12, 2021

Ah, at long last! Chapter CDLVI of Violet Crepuscular’s epic romance, ‘Oy, Rodney.’

Let’s see, where were we? Um… something about a hydra terrorizing the town of Scurveyshire, and a jackalope eating up the vicar’s kitchen garden…

And yet when we turn the page and finally get to Chapter CDLVI, what do we see, what do we read about, but a whole bunch of… kissing? Smooching? Making whoopee? Say it ain’t so, Joe!

Ms. Crepuscular explains. “I have been inundated with tadpoles–or rather, comments by readers–demanding to know when there’s going to be some romance in my romance. I really don’t know why I said ‘tadpoles.’ Do you? So what’s wrong with opening a chapter with Lord Jeremy and Lady Margo kissing as they dance?” She pronounces it “donce.”

Well, the last time we saw them, just a page or two ago, Lady Margo’s wig was on fire and her upholstered wooden leg had fallen off, and Lord Jeremy was trying to tap-dance with his two left feet and making a hash of it; and in the same little room we had a cowboy stretched out on the floor, dead to the world, and the vicar’s conniptions. And now it’s dancing and kissing?

On the High Street of Scurveyshire, Ms. Crepuscular informs us, the hydra is now eating people. Johnno the Merry Minstrel is horse de combat (“That’s Frentch, you peasants!” she interbreeds) after trying to cut off one of the hydra’s nine heads–the wrong one, as luck would have it.

Join us next week for more drivel from the Queen of Suspense!

The Lovers’ Quarrel, and the Art of Dowsing

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From February 14 2021

Introducing Chapter CDIV (what happened to CDIII?) of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, Violet Crepuscular cites a fan letter she has received from Geoffrey the Dowser, of Ginseng Corners, Australia.

“Dear Mrs. Cripustuler,” he writes, “I have been reading your epic romance novel Oy Rodney for sevrul years and I could not help notcing youve got nothing in it about the ancient and Romantic art of dowsing. Please correct this, or i will stop reading!!”

In a confidential aside to the reader, Ms. Crepuscular rises to the challenge. “It’s as if Geoffrey has read my mind!” she ululates. “I can think of no better way to resolve a lovers’ quarrel than for the offending lover to appease the injured party by presenting her with an Acme Official Dowsing Kit! I had a lovers’ quarrel once, some 30 years ago, and when my boyfriend gave me a dowsing kit, I was off to the races!”

She has quite forgotten that today is Valentine’s Day. Oh, well.

With his author’s example to inspire him, Lord Jeremy has bought Lady Margo Cargo a fully-equipped dowsing kit, complete with Y-shaped willow dowsing rod and an instruction pamphlet.

“Oh, Jeremy!” she gushes. “I’m going to go out right away and find underground water, oil, treasure, and gold!”

Neither of them has thought of what perils might accrue to anyone dowsing in the vicinity of the vicar’s backyard wading pool: follow the flexing dowsing rod to an indescribably horrible doom.

Lady Margo’s crusty old butler, Crusty, has to accompany her with pick and shovel to dig wherever the dowsing rod points to. It has put him in a bad mood. Neither of them notices that the rod’s gyrations are leading them closer and closer to the fateful wading pool–which, when last heard of, sucked down a locomotive and several cars full of passengers.

“And here,” writes Violet, “in the interests of suspense, I must break the chapter. Think of it, dear reader! Will Margo and Crusty be sucked down under the wading pool? Or will they first uncover buried treasure–perhaps a hoard of gold coins deposited by a prehistoric king?” What this really means is that she doesn’t know what happens next.

Scurveyshire’s Shakespeare Festival

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Violet Crepuscular introduces Chapter CCCIX of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, thus:

“I would be remiss, dear readers, if I made no mention of Scurveyshire’s annual Shakespeare Festival–a great tradition of English village life.”

Tradition has it that William Shakespeare once spent the night in Scurveyshire on his way to Oxford to buy candy, and rented a room at the shire’s most famous pub, The Lying Tart. Unable to get to sleep, he stayed up all that night to write his little-known tragicomedy, Two Damn Fools. “And one of them,” Christopher Marlowe reportedly said after reading the play, “is you.”

A special stage has been erected on the common for the annual performance of this play, which, these days, is only performed once a year, here in Scurveyshire. It is believed that Shakespeare himself disowned the play and always claimed that Marlowe wrote it. This year Two Damn Fools will be performed by an amateur cast selected by Lady Margo Cargo and directed by Reginal Tosspot, the town drunk.

The plot involves a case of mistaken identity resulting in two damned fools inadvertently marrying each other’s fiancees. That’s really all there is to the plot. Had it been written today, it would have been a low-rated BBC sitcom. But during the festival in Scurveyshire, anyone caught attending the play is treated to as much free ale as he or she can drink. This leads to great merriment, and a high crime rate.

Lord Jeremy Coldsore, as current justice of the peace, busily makes his preparations, whatever they may be. “This,” he confides in his friend, the American adventurer Willis Twombley, who thinks he is Sargon of Akkad, “is an unsurpassed opportunity for Black Rodney to plunge the entire community into catastrophic chaos. I have instructed Constable Chumley to hire two dozen special constables.”

“Does he think they’ll be enough?” asks Twombley.

“What he said was,” answers Jeremy, “‘Aye frithin’ mickle dorbies an’ speed yon thores.'”

Twombley nods sagely. “Sounds like he’s got it under control,” he remarks.

[Note: My allergies are killing me today. If there is any fault to find with this installment of Oy, Rodney, it’s still Ms. Crepuscular to blame.]

From August 4, 2019

I Am Not Violet Crepuscular (‘Oy, Rodney’) REPRINT

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Just because Ms. Violet Crepuscular’s books are so hard to find doesn’t mean I’m writing them. I am not Violet Crepuscular. I have a beard; she doesn’t. I’ve never read a romance novel, except for her inimitable Oy, Rodney. That having been settled, we move on to

CHAPTER CL

Every trial in Scurveyshire is the Trial of the Century. This time the defendant is the merry poacher known as Mickle the Merry Poacher and the plaintiff is Lord Nodule, demanding justice. This is the first case to be tried by Lord Jeremy Coldsore as Justice of the Peace.

“I demand justice!” barks Lord Nodule. “This peon, this excrescence on the body politic, this walking bubo known has Mickle the Merry Poacher, has been poaching on my land for 15 years and I want him stopped! I demand he be punished by drowning!”

The first witness is Constable Chumley, the arresting officer. “Oh, aye,” he testifies, “Mickle been doddlin’ the cairns swofty-like aforementioned deedle.” He is dismissed from the witness stand as soon as possible.

Several of Mickle’s neighbors, and six of Lord Nodule’s tenants, testify that the Merry Poacher has never actually succeeded in poaching anything. “He couldn’t catch a cold,” swears the Widow Flibbert. But the defendant, when he is finally sworn in, insists he has been very successful indeed.

“Caught me a centaur, once’t!” he boasts. “Let’s see anyone top that!”

“What did you do with it?” Lord Jeremy wonders.

“Was gunner eat it, wasn’t I! Only then I found a note on my door from Black Rodney tellin’ me I had to let it go, so that’s what I done.” The crowd gasps.

“I object!” Lord Nodule roars. “Ask him about the badgers!”

“Badgers? Ain’t never caught no badger,” Mickle admits.

“My lord, there are no badgers in Scurveyshire!” interjects the shire’s game warden, Officer Foffle.

“Caught me a Elf once’t, too,” says Mickle.

The public defender, Mr. Potash, moves that all charges be dismissed. “My client is obviously mad, my lord.” He produces a notably ridiculous-looking gadget. “This absurd contraption is one of Mr. Mickle’s homemade snares. You can see it’s perfectly useless for any purpose whatsoever.” Mickle scowls at him.  “I call on you to find him Not Guilty by reason of demonstrable idiocy.”

“He still ought to be drowned,” grumbles Lord Nodule. “What’s this shire coming to, anyway?”

Lord Jeremy sees no alternative but to dismiss the charges. Lord Nodule glares at him.

“You haven’t heard the last of this, Coldsore!” he declares. “I shall be with you on your wedding night!” [Editor’s Note: I think that’s what Frankenstein’s monster said to his creator, Victor Frankenstein, in Mary Shelly’s classic horror novel. What was Ms. Crepuscular thinking when she penned that line?]

The chapter ends abruptly with a recipe for aphid jelly. I cannot bring myself to repeat it.

‘Oy, Rodney’: Unbearable Suspense REPRINT

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From 2017

 Chapter XCVIII of Violet Crepuscular’s romance epic, Oy, Rodney, Lord Jeremy Coldsore’s creditors are breathing down his neck–literally; and it’s very uncomfortable. One of them turned up under his bed, checking for woodworm. Unless Lord Jeremy’s plan to marry Lady Margo Cargo, the richest widow in all of Scurvyshire, succeeds, he will lose Coldsore Hall, right down to the concrete flamingos on the front lawn.

The wedding of Lady Margo to the American adventurer, Willis Twombley, who thinks he is Sargon of Akkad, has been delayed, owing to Lady Margo’s cantankerous old butler, who has misplaced her false teeth. Jeremy and Willis have been taking turns courting her, pretending to be the same person. As predicted, Lady Margo has not noticed the difference–except to say, to Lord Jeremy, “I declare, Sargon, sometimes you seem like two different people.” The plan is to carry out the wedding with Jeremy in Twombley’s place.

Meanwhile, everyone has noticed a change in the vicar’s demeanor. He has taken to skipping ungracefully instead of walking. They attribute this to the bout of conniptions he suffered when he peeked under the wading pool in his back yard. Constable Chumly now stands guard by the pool. “T’other dee,” he says, “we lammicked a porty feen, reet o’er yonder skeel.” He looks worried when he says it.

“I’ve noticed a change in the vicar’s demeanor,” Lady Margo confides to Twombly.

“It’s because of his conniptions, l’il gal,” he answers.

As the chapter closes, Lord Jeremy catches another creditor trying to make off with the third baron’s armor that he wore during the Crusades. The baron is still in it, necessitating a change in the Coldsore family chronicles.

‘Take THAT, Ms. Crepuscular!’

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

Ha-ha-ha! Poetic justice returns to the Internet. The bad guy gets dunked in dirty water. And Violet Crepuscular gets beaned–all’s right with the world!

You may remember Ms. Crepuscular challenging her readers to provide hints of a massive do-over of her immortal romance, Oy, Rodney. Here are a few examples.

Pooba City, OK: “Aw, shut up already!”

K’smagge, Eurasia: “Do we get a prize for reading this?”

Imago Humana, New Jersey: “There’s a guy in Piscataway who writes better than you do–and he’s locked up!”

Bisstong, Rumania: “I learn English for this?”

Despite her protestations that “most” readers are positively crazy about her work, we’ve got her number. You can run, Violet, but you can’t hide!

INTERRUPTION: What? You wonder what happened to Mr Pinball? No, he has not been dunked in dirty water. To say nothing of Willis Twombley, or Lord Whatsisname (the one with the big house).

You’ve got it bad, kimosabe. Try to find a health hot line.

‘Oy, Rodney’… Stalls on a Dime

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

For anyone else, it’d be a mere figure of speech. But for celebrated romance writer Violet Crepuscular, it’s an incident of war.

War against her editor… which is me.

“You will never again horn in on my images of woolly mammoths and the June Taylor Dancers,” she writes, in a letter thrust under my car’s windshield wiper. For a moment there I thought it was a ticket.

“I will never forgive you,” she continues, “for arranging for Mr. Pitfall actually to fall into a pit! You’d better watch yourself, crossing your living room: you won’t know what’s under the rug until you find out the hard way.”

The police chief in our town is a huge (6’11”) Violet Crepuscular fan who just laughs when I seek protection. “Afraid of a cuddly little thing like Violet!” he mocks me. “Well, as the Emperor Honorius told the Britons, ‘Look to your own defenses!'” (He’s a big classics buff.)

Well, I guess I’d better get started.

Keeping Up With Violet Crepuscular

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

All right! Who here thinks it’s easy to keep up with Violet Crepuscular and her hysterical romance, Oy, Rodney? Bang your head on the table if it’s you.

She blames it all on me, of course. “You call yourselves an editor? Pfaah!

“Yeah, okay,” she admits: “I’m the one who brought in the June Taylor Dancers and the woolly mammoths. I didn’t know they were going to dry up your brain! Sheesh, I thought you were going to use them! Serves me right for thinking I oughtta has an editor.”

[My reply: “Ah, Violet, Violet! They should’ve named you Venus Flytrap.

3,400+ Venus Flytrap Stock Photos, Pictures & Royalty-Free ... ((Picture of Venus Flytrap, with fly.))

“I have raised you from obscurity, and you bite me in the tuchas! Now we have 500-plus chapters of drivel. And it’s not my fault! Again and again you have ignored my editorial suggestions. And this is what happens! Find yourself another editor.”]

She tried to have me arrested, but there is no law in the UK against quitting an impossible editorial job. But I found a note taped to my door.

“Your days they are numbered! Prepare to be Doomed!”

How do you prepare to be doomed?

 

Another Return of ‘Oy, Rodney’

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

I am in hot water with Violet Crepuscular, the Queen of Suspense. I lost the last chapter of her immortal romance novel, Oy, Rodney. Being pretty freakin’ sick in the hospital for most of this year so far… “Is the most paltry excuse I ever heard!” she says.

I vaguely remember something about the June Taylor Dancers invading Scurveyshire, with woolly mammoths stepping on things. Sheesh, there were at least 536 chapters of that.

Well, if she thinks I’m going to rack my brain trying to find those chapters, she’s got another think coming. “I’m Spartacus!” Let’s see what she makes of that!

To the swarms of readers out there who’ve been hanging on Ms. Crepuscular’s every word, I can only suggest that maybe someday she’ll get back in form and we can all enjoy more tales of Lord Whatsisname and his American sidekick, Willis Something-or-Other.