Tag: silly romance novels

Disaster for Scurveyshire! (‘Oy, Rodney’)

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

See the source image

“The Pict came down like galoshes in the night” (writes Violet Crepuscular, introducing Chapter DCLXXXXIX of her extraordinary romance, Oy, Rodney) “And alas for Scurveyshire: out goes the light!” [The publisher wishes to disavow any interest in or connection with Ms. Crepuscular’s poetic efforts.]

The Picts have come and gone. They came while the good people of Scurveyshire were playing Bingo. And they ravaged the place. Mourn, O Scurveyshire! For they have taken your park bench, several rain barrels, Constable Chumley’s tricycle, and the only street lamp that was working.

“See? Black Rodney’s ancient Curse!” declares Ms. Crepuscular. “Good thing everyone was playing Bingo! Now can I get back to romance?”

She means the childhood romance between Lady Margo Cargo and the man who is now the Royal Millipede inspector. He has forgotten his name. Lady Margo has forgotten he ever existed. (They were only four and six months old, respectively, at the time. So much has changed since then.)

But wait! What’s this?

“O holy jumping catfish!” importunes The Queen of Suspense. “The Picts have got Whatsisname!” (She’s forgotten, too.) “He was sleeping on the park bench when they took it!”

See how cleverly she plants the seed of future chapters. Is it any wonder readers call her a you-know-what?

‘The Picts Are Coming! The Picts Are Coming!’ (‘Oy, Rodney’)

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

See the source image

This is the chapter you’ve been waiting for! Or so I’m told.

Introducing Chapter DCLXXXXVIII of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, author Violet Crepuscular, The Queen of Suspense, writes, “Well, we can’t go into Lady Margo Cargo’s romance with the Royal Millipede Inspector, can we? Not with the Picts sweeping down on us, we can’t!”

As described by Ms. Crepuscular, Picts are sort of half-human, half-alligator monsters that crawl out of the bayous and cypress swamps of northern Scotland, where they made a lot of money in real estate. Famous Picts in history include Beau Brummel, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Alan Sherman. The rest are not famous.

As Justice of the Peace, Lord Jeremy Coldsore must organize the defense of the shire. “Why don’t you jist let me shoot them Picts?” suggests his friend, the American adventurer Willis Twombley, who believes himself to be Sargon of Akkad. “Back in Babylon, we would’t give them yayhoos the time o’day.”

Meanwhile, Constable Chumley is trying to start a rifle brigade. “An sennaught came yon westle,” he philosophizes. Picts can’t stand that kind of philosophy.

“I wanted to write the romance as a romance!” (Ms. Crepuscular gestures hypnotically. Three ushers fall into a trance.) “All I asked was a little help in naming the Royal Millipede Inspector. You’d’ve thought thousands of readers from all over the world would’ve responded! That’s what I thought! Just goes to show ya, don’t it?”

 

To Pict or Not to Pict (‘Oy, Rodney’)

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

See the source image

[Editor’s Note: Yes, I’m running late. Computer wasn’t about to do my bidding. My spirit is tired.]

Violet Crepuscular, The Queen of Suspense, has blamed her readers for unleashing a Pictish invasion of Scurveyshire. Introducing Chapter DCLXXXXVII of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, Ms. Crepuscular writes:

“Well, I hope you’re happy! I throw open the Doors of Creativity, inviting my readership to provide a name for the Royal Millipede Inspector, Lady Margo Cargo’s lost love–and hardly anybody applies!! Whatever those Picts do to Scurveyshire, it’s your fault!”

But she is distracted by a reminder that today is The Super Bowl and she needs to whip up a batch of Super Bowl cookies. Suddenly a barbarian invasion seems like pretty small potatoes.

“This year’s Super Bowl cookies,” Violet mumbles, “feature not one but two layers of toothpaste between highly salted Ritz crackers. Double your pleasure!” She has not yet seen the millipede colony burgeoning in the remotest regions of her kitchen. “Julia Child never had millipedes!” she will cry, once she discovers she has something to cry about.

And so romance gives way to Pictish barbarity, which in turn gives way to blanking football… and by and by we will sample Violet’s double-toothpaste cookies.

The Royal Millipede Inspector, Continued (‘Oy, Rodney’)

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

See the source image

Violet Crepuscular, The Queen of Suspense, is angry with her readers (No, I will not add, snidely, “What, all four of them?”). Having invited them to name the Royal Millipede Inspector, who incidentally is Lady Margo Cargo’s long-lost love, Ms. Crepuscular was offended by the tepid response among her readers.

“I have a good mind to delete him from Oy, Rodney,” she says, introducing Chapter DCLXXXXV of her epic romance. “By gum, the millipede inspector who comes to my house doesn’t belong in any romance! But this tragic figure, this man who has forgotten his own name, whose only interest in life is millipedes, this poor jidrool who once vowed undying love to Margo Cargo when he saw her, as a little girl, catching and eating tadpoles, this pure tottering wreck of a man–oh, the music he and Margo could have made together!” He plays the spoons. Lady Margo plays the comb and paper.

(Nothing has happened in this novel for three weeks.)

But what’s this we hear? Can it be true? Oh, forsooth, we heard it clearly this time.

The Picts are coming! The Picts are coming!

It’s been 1,700 years since this last happened, give or take a few.

Looks like Scurveyshire is in for a blow!

Naming the Millipede Inspector! (‘Oy, Rodney’)

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

See the source image

In case you missed it–performing brain surgery, putting out a fire, whatever–Violet Crepuscular, The Queen of Suspense, last week threw open her in-progress novel to her readers… announcing a contest to name the Royal Millipede Inspector in her epic romance, Oy, Rodney. The prize: literary immortality!

Since then, two or three entries have poured in from all over the world.

From Pungdoosh, Afghanistan: “What are you talking about? What is milly-peed, please?”

A reader in Fitzburgh, Kansas: “Is this with Reader’s Digest?”

And from Sverlovinsk-Druzh, Siberia, “My mother hurt her coccyx yesterday.”

None of this gets us into Chapter DCLXXXXIV of the romance. “For that you need a ladder and a crowbar!” quips Ms. Crepuscular. “All I can tell you is, once we get the millipede inspector named, and he and Lady Margo recognize each other as long-lost childhood sweethearts–well, oh-boy, things are gonna sizzle! But good!”

Notice we’re going nowhere at all without a name for this character. We leave him inspecting the streets of Scurveyshire for sub-standard millipedes.

A Special Announcement from The Queen of Suspense

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

See the source image

For those of you who’ve been enjoying the saga of Oy, Rodney as it piles up chapters like a hoarder piles up newspapers and magazines, Ms. Violet Crepuscular, “The Queen of Suspense,” has an important announcement to make.

“As everyone who’s been reading this epic romance knows,” she says, “Lady Margo Cargo’s childhood sweetheart has become, in the intervening 48 years, the Royal Millipede Inspector. He has also forgotten his name, it’s been so long since he used it!

“Here’s where you come in, dear reader. Or go out. What is the Millipede Inspector’s name? Coming up with it will be a contest for youse guys! I will actually use what I feel is the most apt name suggested by a reader. So the prize is a kind of literary immortality.”

Ms. Crepuscular vigorously rejects the allegation that she has run out of plot and is, as it were, simply treading water until she can think of something.

“Certain critics are never satisfied!” she declares. “These are no better than conflationists. Readers ought to shun them!”

Here are some millipedes to inspire you… if you’re the type who gets inspired by millipedes.

Millipedes - Control of Millipedes in the Home. | Kiwicare

Lady Margo’s Childhood Sweetheart (‘Oy, Rodney’)

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

See the source image

As fate would have it, the Royal Millipede Inspector is Lady Margo Cargo’s childhood sweetheart. He was hard to find because, through years of disuse, he has forgotten his name. Queen Victoria addresses him as “Hey, you!”

“This is crucial to the development of the plot,” explains our author, Violet Crepuscular, The Queen of Suspense. She does not explain how it’s crucial, nor are we at all sure, anymore, what the plot of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, is. Is this really Chapter DCLXXXXI?

Anyway, it’s been 48 years since Lady Margo last laid eyes on the dashing figure of a man who was to become the Royal Millipede Inspector and now looks something like a millipede himself.

Ms. Crepuscular digresses: “Ain’t life funny? They could’ve been happy together! The guy was all lined up to be a Navy officer when he got sidetracked into millipedes. And now he don’t even know his own name!” [We cannot account for the author’s grammatical lapses–The Editor.]

The publisher, we have heard, is offering a handsome prize to anyone who can take Oy, Rodney off his hands

Special Bonus Treat! The Lost ‘Oy, Rodney’ Episode

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

See the source image

(Who said “Shoulda stayed lost!”?)

Ha, ha, I got most of our Christmas stuff done over the last three days, so today I can rest! I might as well; I’m really tired.

But–! Here’s the episode of Oy, Rodney that had critics’ pants in a knot.

Bonus ‘Oy, Rodney’ Episode

Some deny that Violet Crepuscular ever wrote this. She does not deny it. “I’m the Queen of Suspense! I don’t have to remember things!” she exfoliates.

[This is as far as I go today, amigos. I am pooped. We’ll have our cyber-party here tomorrow, and you’re all invited. Bring incredibly expensive snacks!]

Oops! More Problems (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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

Introducing Chapter DCLXXXIX (“Don’t you just love Roman numerals!”) of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, Violet Crepuscular, the Queen of Suspense, shows that she has not forgotten that Scurveyshire still lies under a curse pronounced by the medieval sorcerer, Black Rodney.

“It’s those singing millipedes,” she explains. “They are not what they seem!”

Indeed, they have invaded Bombo’s Bakery and devoured the wedding cakes–another obstacle to the impeding nuptials of Lord Jeremy Coldsore and Lady Margo Cargo.

Surprisingly, it’s Constable Chumley who has the insight here. “Yair, veevy millerpeeds dyne swick yon ferfel!” Now all they have to do is find a ferfel and put it to good use. Unfortunately, no one is quite sure what a ferfel is.

“As justice of the peace,” trumpets Lord Jeremy (without a trumpet), “I declare this day, December Whatever, as Find the Ferfel Day! Everyone, pitch in–unless you’d rather live with the racket those millipedes are making!” They have moved on from Anchors A-Weigh to Jimmy Crack Corn.

“It’s Rodney’s Curse!” Ms. Crepuscular declares.

She has not mentioned the guy from the collection agency who was run over by a truck and now is enshrined in the novel as Squire Gervais Pong. Chances are she’s already forgotten him.

Scurveyshire at Peace, Sort Of (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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

Somehow all of Scurveyshire’s most pressing problems went away while the author, Violet Crepuscular, The Queen of Suspense, stayed in bed. June Taylor Dancers, rampaging rhinoceros, all that other stuff–now that we’re being pushed into Chapter DCLXXXVIII of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, it’s all given way to peace and quiet. “You can hear the millipedes sing,” writes Ms. Crepuscular. She’s out of bed now.

“I am sure many of you have noticed,” she writes, “that if you can duck certain problems long enough, they evaporate. Just poof, they’re gone! Like that lout from the collection agency who was bugging me so much. They said he got run over by a truck.”

This sets the stage, she explains, for the resumption of preparations for the wedding of Lady Margo Cargo and Lord Jeremy Coldsore.

Uh… How does some guy from the collection agency getting hit by a truck set the stage for a wedding in Scurveyshire?

“This is what I deal with all the time!” expostulates The Queen of Suspense. “People are determined not to understand what you mean! But I will not write down to their level! Pulitzer Prize committee be damned!”