Harlequin romance novels can be astonishingly varied. There was one in the mid ‘90s about a scientist who managed to make himself a superhero. In the back of this one, there’s an ad for one where the main character is, in fact, a witch. The trend of Amish romances postdates most of my familiarity with the company, but while many of them are essentially identical, there are some amazing, fascinating outliers. I know this, because my mom read so many of them when I was a kid that she subscribed to their reading club, and for years we had glasses in the house that we’d gotten from them. So the plot of this one wasn’t a shock, but it was a surprise.

Barbara Emerson’s stepdaughter, Jacqui, has run away. She hires private investigator Dan McGuinn to search for Jacqui. He tells her that most runaways go to Los Angeles, New York, or Florida. When Greg Emerson died in a car accident, it strained Barbara and Jacqui’s relationship. Jacqui ended up running with a rougher crowd. Her grades dropped. And because this was the ‘80s—the book was published in 1986—Barbara didn’t get her in therapy. Dan is doing investigating when Jacqui calls Barbara late one night, saying she’s in Orlando and wants to come home. Barbara wires the money for the plane ticket then doesn’t hear from Jacqui, who doesn’t come home. Dan flies Barbara to Orlando in his private plane to search for Jacqui.

What follows, aside from a couple of mandatory sex scenes, is a delightfully bonkers travelogue of the Disney parks. Dan is of the opinion that Jacqui is probably working in one of the amusement parks, likely under an assumed name; he does the bare minimum to rule out her working on the Orange Blossom Trail first, and then they hit Disney. They appear to start there because, um, reasons. They’re both Disney fans? And it’s of course true that, in 1986, Magic Kingdom/Epcot Center was the most likely option. Though “most likely” doesn’t cover most of what happens in the Florida parts of the book.

I haven’t read a Harlequin in nearly thirty years, and I had forgotten how overblown the language is. Dan’s first impression of Barbara includes, “Those thick, red curls refused to be disciplined and made the prim, tailored outfit she wore an intriguing deception.” (Dan is also a redhead, and why not?) The sex scenes will definitely call to mind those Miss Perky is writing in 10 Things I Hate About You. When Barbara is eating an apple, Dan watches “her lips close over the red orb.” After they’ve started hooking up, they have a dinner at his apartment that includes chocolate fondue for desert because of course, and it features the line, “‘Since you’ve taken the banana,’ he teased, ‘I’ll take the cherry.'”

Now, I’ve never been to Disney World, only Disneyland, but I can already tell you that I’d do a far better job at hunting down a runaway than Dan does. For starters, you can guarantee that the Mouse would be extremely interested in a barely sixteen-year-old runaway working at the park under a fake ID. There’s lip service paid to how Jacqui gets away with it, but security would be much more cooperative than they’re shown to be here. Somehow, the most efficient way to find Jacqui is to just . . . go to the park. Look in all the restaurants and shops. Ride the rides so you can check out the people working on them. I can list at least ten problems with doing things this way, the most obvious being how extensive backstage is at the Disney parks.

It’s explicitly stated how crowded the park is, which of course doesn’t make it easier to find a single teenager. Now, I want you to list a handful of the most popular rides in the Magic Kingdom; I’ll wait. And then I will tell you that the scene where they become certain that Jacqui is working at the park involves running onto Pirates of the Caribbean. Jacqui gets on one boat, and Dan and Barbara, hot on her heels, are somehow three boats or so behind her. So then Dan gets up and jumps from boat to boat, managing to do this while neither upsetting a boat nor apparently encountering other people; certainly none are mentioned. Everyone has managed to walk right on.

It’s infuriating that Barbara doesn’t even consider therapy for Jacqui seriously. The idea is brought up a few times, but despite the utter certainty that Jacqui is acting out in pain, we get the kind of happily ever after you expect from this sort of book. No one gets therapy. No one deals with the trauma of Greg’s death—heck, Barbara clearly has PTSD from the accident, though I’ll admit that my understanding of Florida traffic suggests you don’t have to in order to find riding in it terrifying. (The book blames tourists; from what I’ve read, I have my doubts.) But Dan enters their family, and no one needs therapy anymore. Even Dan, who obviously also has PTSD from his experience on the police force.

I don’t know what connection this book had with the actual Disney people. Did Harlequin have permission? Did they have a contract? Lord, I don’t know. I assume so, but all the information I can find about this book is people discovering its existence and writing about it in bewilderment, much as I am doing here. There have been more than four thousand books by Harlequin, though that’s also including reprints, and finding any specific information about any of them is quite the challenge. Especially because that turns out not to include this one, because it’s not under the main imprint and is instead a Harlequin American Romance. There’s also an imprint focusing specifically on black protagonists, one that reprinted romance manga, medical-focused, and all sorts of other things.

Is this book worth reading? Well. It’s certainly funny, anyway. It’s also not a bad look at Disney World in the ‘80s, I suppose. A lot more detail is provided on how Dan fills out his pants than how the park looks, I suppose, but when the book describes the park, it definitely makes me interested in going. The description of Pirates is pretty detailed. Barbara and Dan have dinner at a restaurant in the Mexican pavilion at Epcot that makes it sound like a really cool place to visit. The list of stores and rides is probably pretty comprehensive for 1986.

I’m glad this came across my radar, at least. It’s a time capsule. The hair, the clothing, and the decoration of Jacqui’s room, for one thing. But also, if you know what you’re looking at, the description of the parks. I’d imagine someone who spends time in the park these days can read it and identify exactly which ones no longer exist—though my reaction was more, “Aw, the Tomorrowland Terrace! We have one of those, too, and I ate there with my elementary school best friend the last time I was there!” Why isn’t more of the book what happens while they’re at the park?

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