Betsey Jones never expected to be the oldest contestant ever in the Firecracker Queen contest when she retreated to Michigan and the home of her great-aunt Daphne while she figured out what to do with the rest of her life. But Aunt Daphne and her friends were on a mission to create something the small town needed and Betsey just couldn't say no. What she didn't realize was that Quent Hayes, who she remembered so not-fondly from high school, was going to make the experience even worse. Quent didn't want to be there either. But when he crossed the line with his editor, his punishment was to follow a particular contestant, one MIss Betsey Jones, during the entire pageant experience. What neither of them expected was that the holiday fireworks wouldn't be confined to the town's Fourth of July display.