The Mortician's Daughter

I’ll admit, I rolled my eyes at first—*another* brooding teen girl with a dark family secret? But *The Mortician’s Daughter* won me over by refusing to play it safe. Riley isn’t just angsty; she’s *funny*, her sarcasm a shield against the parade of corpses trailing her dad home. The ghosts aren’t just plot devices; they’re fully realized characters with agendas, from a murdered cheerleader demanding justice to a grieving mother who won’t let go. Hunter balances the supernatural and the mundane so well that even the most outlandish moments (a séance gone horribly right, a prom date with a ghost) feel grounded in Riley’s raw, relatable loneliness. Amy McFadden’s performance is stellar, though I’ll dock half a point for her occasional over-emphasis on Riley’s snark—some lines land more *eyebrow-raised* than the text warrants. Still, her ability to voice the ghosts is downright chilling, especially when she slips into the hollow, echoing tone of a spirit mid-possession. The pacing drags slightly in the middle as Riley’s romantic subplot (with a very alive love interest) competes for attention, but the final act’s twist—tying the ghosts’ fates to her father’s hidden past—is worth the wait. The audio production shines in quiet moments: the *click* of a coffin latch, the hum of a funeral home’s fluorescent lights. It’s not flawless, but it’s *memorable*—the kind of listen that lingers like a ghost in the backseat of your car.