Review: A Witch's Sin by Daniel B. Greene

Blurb:

What would you do to keep your dreams ad-free?

Bruised, stoned, and still adjusting to her latest wear implants, apprentice enforcer Taya Mint plunges into the darkest depths of Megastructure Seven Zero Three, challenging everything she thought she knew about life within the walls she has never stepped beyond. With only one assignment left to earn her full license, Taya finally stands a chance to rebuild a life wounded by grief. But soon she discovers the kidnapping she's investigating is just a piece of a puzzle, one that leads to grisly death and the greedy heart of power within the structure. When evidence points to a supernatural threat as the culprit, Taya finds herself needing to rely on cold-blooded allies just to survive the hell that is Seven Zero Three.

In order to save an innocent life in a world polluted by zealots, Taya will have to learn just how much it costs to face the monsters that occupy humanity’s artificial Eden.

Review:

Daniel Greene has made quite a name for himself in the fantasy space as one of the largest personalities on Fantasy Booktube. Speaking personally, I credit him a lot with helping guide me toward authors who would become major influences for me when I was starting to get back into reading. When his debut, Breach of Peace, released, I was eager to support him and give it a go, and despite some flaws, I enjoyed it. When Neon Ghosts: A Witch’s Sin was announced, I was even more eager to see how he’s grown as an author, and while it’s a bit rough around the edges, there’s a lot to enjoy here and plenty of twists and turns that make me look forward to what’s next in store for this series.

Set in a dystopian cyberpunk world, A Witch’s Sin follows an apprentice enforcer named Taya Mint, who is close to completing her apprenticeship and earning a full license. When she takes on a job that seems innocuous at first—find and rescue a missing girl—things go topside quick and she uncovers a deep conspiracy filled with supernatural threats and political power grabs, causing her to question everything she thought she knew about her world and reconsider everything and everyone she thought she trusted.

Where Greene really excels in A Witch’s Sin is the world he’s crafted. The cyberpunk setting is a stark departure from his previous work but it’s set up quite well, with everything from the genre staples of political corruption and cybernetic enhancements, to deviations that implement supernatural fantasy conventions like vampires, witches, possession, and dark magic. All of this plays well with a diverse cast of characters whose ambitions toe a morally grey line that keeps the plot moving forward and moving well.

Plot-wise, this may be where Greene has improved the most. He’s written some excellent twists that I didn’t see coming at all, and while the overall structure of the book has more of a campy feel, it’s hardly to its own detriment. If the pulp detective mixed with fantasy twists of the Dresden Files series is your jam, you’ll probably find a lot to like with A Witch’s Sin’s plot—just with the additional cyberpunk flavor.

That being said, there are some larger issues with the book that prevent it from reaching the heights Greene was hoping for. First and foremost, the characters, though diverse and well-written in some aspects, falter a bit in terms of voice. As the story progresses, it’s difficult to fully follow who is speaking because most of them speak in the same tone—regardless of whether it’s Taya or if it’s the centuries-old witch she meets—while others, like Taya’s enforcer partner, speak in a strange dialect that’s a bit difficult to read off the page. After a while, all the characters tended to blend together that it became near impossible to tell everyone apart.

Additionally, while I commend Greene for including some social commentary, how he goes about it is a bit poor. A big example of this is when he introduces the vampires as an oppressed minority group just trying to assimilate into human society, but they are mercilessly persecuted by fanatics who treat them as bloodthirsty, murderous demons. We’re even introduced to a few who are kind, caring, and just want to live their lives as normally as they can…but this gets quickly undermined when we meet vampires who are exactly as they’re being described by their persecutors and tick every vampire trope box in the book. It comes off as “these minorities are an oppressed group…but they kinda deserve it,” which I imagine is not at all what Greene was going for.

Unfortunately, that ends up a running theme through A Witch’s Sin. You can tell what Greene is going for: corrupt politicians, wealth inequality, hyper-capitalism, racial discrimination and persecution, police brutality. I can commend the effort on weaving all of these into the Neon Ghosts world, but ultimately, I felt he needed to go a step forward for it all to really hit, because beyond the bit about vampires I already highlighted, everything else seems to be explained as, “Just because.” I’d love to see this expanded upon more in the next book.

I wanted to like A Witch’s Sin more than I did. It’s still a solid book with an imaginative world and a solid foundation on which to build. I was just hoping for more. But, if Greene’s growth from Breach of Peace to A Witch’s Sin is any indication, I’m sure the next entry in the Neon Ghosts series will improve upon what has been laid already.