A renaissance fair is coming to the relatively quiet college town of Farberville, Arkansas. Though resistant to getting involved, Claire Malloy, local bookseller and mother of the perpetually petulant teen Caron, finds herself drawn into the strange inner workings of the group putting on the fair. But a dark mood falls over the festivities when one of the organizers is a victim of arson, and her body is found in the burned wreckage of her rented house....

Finding what she hopes will be an ideal house to share with her new husband and teenage daughter, Claire Malloy learns that the property's previous owner died under suspicious circumstances and that a real estate agent has gone missing.