Murder Ballad centers around a young woman named Sara. She begins the story dating a wild bartender named Tom. After a messy breakup, she falls in love with Michael, a professor at NYU with a more sensible life than Tom's dangerous ways. After getting married and raising a child, Sara starts to long for the old life with Tom. She begins secretly seeing Tom, but as her affair gets more passionate with him, Sara longs to go back to the normal life she had with Michael and her daughter.