The Mortician's Daughter (Christie Craig) Books in Order

The Mortician's Daughter is built around a heroine who already feels like the odd one out before the ghosts show up. Riley Smith is forever the new girl, her father's work makes classmates whisper, and grief has been sitting in her house since her mother's death. Then the series adds the real twist, the dead who follow her mortician father home are visible to Riley, and they expect help.

That is what makes the trilogy more than a string of spooky scenes. The spirits are not there just to rattle doors. They come with unfinished business, and helping them usually drags Riley into danger from the living as well. A girl everyone says died by accident. A convict whose last request could save a child. A murdered bride who wants justice on her own terms. Each mystery stands on its own, but each one also pushes Riley closer to truths she has been avoiding in her own life.

Hayden changes the shape of the story.

He first appears as a ghostly boy who protects Riley and quickly becomes more than just another spirit passing through. Hayden gives the books their romantic pull, but he is also tied to the series' longer questions about identity, memory, and what really happened in Riley's past. Their connection is one of the biggest reasons the trilogy works in order, because the emotional stakes keep shifting as new answers come in.

The setting helps a lot. These books have a small-town Texas feel where gossip travels, old hurt lingers, and secrets never stay buried for long. Riley's home life is just as important as the hauntings. Her father drinks too much, her mother's death still aches, and school never stops being part of the problem. That grounding keeps the supernatural side from floating off into pure fantasy. The crimes feel human, even when ghosts are the ones pointing Riley toward them.

It sounds heavy, and sometimes it is.

But the series does not live in gloom. Riley is funny, stubborn, and sharper than people expect. There is banter, crushes, awkwardness, and the kind of ordinary teen frustration that makes the stranger parts land better. Christie Craig, writing as C.C. Hunter, knows how to balance a chill with a little warmth, so the books feel tense without becoming miserable.

If you like YA stories that mix ghost lore, real-world danger, family secrets, and first love, this trilogy knows its lane. Start with One Foot in the Grave and keep going in order through Two Feet Under and Three Heartbeats Away. Riley's cases matter, but the deeper hook is watching her piece together who she can trust, what the dead need from her, and what kind of life she wants once the truth stops hiding.