Tessa Schmidt was floating through life after losing her husband Peter in a car accident until her parents convinced her to return to her hometown of Shady Lake. Moving back to the small town in Minnesota where she grew up provides a welcome retreat as she helps run the B&B where her parents live while hanging out at her best friend Mandy's donut shop. She has even started to go out on a few dates, mostly with her high school boyfriend, Max and the new teacher in town, Clark.
With the annual Halloween Hayride coming up, Tessa is excited to be part of the committee that runs the town's largest fundraiser. Everything is going great, until Earl Stone tries to personally profit from it.
As everyone tries to make sure the Hayride is on track, Tessa finds something that really might shut it down for good: someone murdered Earl in the field where the Hayride takes place. And they did it by running him over with the Halloween Hayride!
Can Tessa figure out who killed Earl and get the Halloween Hayride back on track before it's too late?