It is inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson's classic 1886 novella Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

The novel is about a young girl working at the home of Dr. Henry Jekyll who falls in love with her master.

John Crowley of The New York Times called it "an achievement - creativity skating exhilaratingly on thin ice" and wrote that Martin's "treatment of his story actually succeeds in ways Stevenson himself could not have brought off and might well have admired.

"[1] Kirkus Reviews wrote: "Weakened slightly by a Hyde who rampages mostly off-page, lessening his monstrousness--here's a rare novel where a bit more explicit violence might have proved more rather than less artful--but wholly captivating both in its detailed re-creation of Victorian upstairs/downstairs life and the slums beyond, and in its wise measuring of Mary's soul.

Freeman further wrote that the "amazing skill of Valerie Martin is how she takes details from Stevenson’s story and recasts them on the page: She fills in the blanks; she tells you the “other” side.