Review: The Runaway Daughter

I was on a historical kick when I read The Runaway Daughter by Joanna Rees so I was looking forward to it. It's the first book in a series buuut I'm not sure if I'm going to seek out the next when it publishes this summer. I didn't love this one, which was an unfortunate surprise.

Here's the synopsis:

The first novel in a dazzling and sweeping historical trilogy from bestselling author Joanna Rees.
It's 1926 and Anna Darton is on the run from a terrible crime. Alone and scared in London, salvation comes in the form of Nancy, a sassy American dancer at the notorious nightclub, The Zip. Re-inventing herself as Vita Casey, Anna becomes part of the line-up and is thrown into a hedonistic world of dancing, parties, flapper girls and fashion.
When she meets the dashing Archie Fenwick, Vita buries her guilty conscience and believes him when he says he will love her no matter what. But unbeknown to Vita, her secret past is fast catching up on her, and when the people closest to her start getting hurt, she is forced to confront her past or risk losing everything she holds dear.

I struggled with a lot of this story. The main thing was how it was written. There are chapters from one of Anna's family members interspersed with her viewpoint and it was a bit jarring. (That's vague but I don't want to say more because doing so would reveal one of the small twists Rees wrote.) One of the other things I didn't like was Anna herself. I know she had a very sheltered life and was a young woman from a wealthy family. Girls those days just didn't seem to have an education that would help them in the real world. And that translates to a very, very naive girl in a big city. Even knowing that, I was still frustrated at Anna and her choices.

I did like the time period Rees wrote. And because of the way she wrote it, I could even kind of feel like I was a flapper myself. Which, I admit, was lifestyle that was a lot more scandalous than I had really realized. But made it fun and added to the intrigue and tension in the overall story.

It's hard to write a review months after reading a book. But when you didn't really like it? It becomes almost impossible. I put off reviewing this one in part because life got in the way of timely reviews and also...I just wasn't really sure what to say about it. The Runaway Daughter was a major miss for me for many reasons. I've heard great things about Joanna Rees (aka Josie Lloyd and Jo Rees) so I might be tempted to pick up another of hers in the future but she'd have to work hard to make me really excited.

*An egalley of this novel was provided by the Canadian distributor, Publishers Group Canada, in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*