The book - set in Pembrokeshire, Wales - explores the effect of a bewitched doll on multiple generations of young women.

A malevolent doll found in the attic of a seaside mansion affects the actions of three generations of young women, until at last one is able to break the spell and destroy it.

The little girl, it turns out, is the old woman’s grand-niece, and when the two are finally united, they recognize each other from their mutual visions even though they’ve never met in the flesh.

Part one is told by Melissa, from when the family arrives at the Old Court until she and Judith and Carew were about to become adults, in the middle of World War I.

Carew is determined to remain faithful to her, but after time passes, when he finishes his studies, Judith sweeps in and the two run off to London together to marry.

She lives at Old Court in Newcove, with Aunt Liss (Melissa), and Emmy, and sometimes her mother Judith is there but she acts strangely much of the time and pushes everyone away.

Part three is told from the point of view of Melissa again, and starts with a letter arriving from Dilys seven months after it was sent from Poland, in early 1940.

After Judith dies of pneumonia, Melissa and Emmy Lee search everywhere for Dido in order to destroy her, but they can't find it.

Nina feels uncomfortably alienated from Aunt Liss and Miss Emmy at times because of her past, but also tougher than them because of all she had endured.

In time she finds Dido, hidden deep within a series of cubby holes, with the herb Santolina/Lavender Cotton packed around her.

Her hair and features were carved in great detail, her expression was 'a curious mixture - wise, sly, enigmatic.'

When Dido was discovered by Briony, at the bottom of an old leather trunk in the Old Loft of the Old Court, she was dressed in a simple layer.

In Judith's paintings, Dido was 'in rich clothes of brilliant colors, her black hair piled high on her proud head.

Rose Michael says of the book and Arthur's others, "I never left them open—as though the doll Dido might escape from the pages the same way she’d evaded every other attempt to contain her.

Inspiring, I’ve just realised, the first short story I published as a teenager, giving a new meaning to its ‘Exorcism’ title.

In Ellen Datlow's article on 'The Most Disturbing Dolls in Literature, this description of Dido by Gemma Files is first in the list.

'Dido, a wooden doll held together with pegs - slim, hard, and totemically simple, her name incised along her spine.. is obviously a witch's fetish...

[6] Lucy Ellmann lists the novel as one of her favorite childhood books, "This was my first taste of a multiple-voice narrative, and I thought it incredibly sophisticated.