"So much of Black Site, Black Mother feels dangerous, perhaps even forbidden to read because of Rennik's frightening ability to place the reader in such close proximity to the horrors on the page. Arresting and utterly original, Rennik's novel is a blistering portrait of war, surveillance, and transformation." -Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke
Set in 2004, Black Site, Black Mother begins when the CIA abducts "the Engineer," a man believed to be the head of Al Qaeda's biological weapons program. He is taken to a black site in Poland where he is interrogated by several CIA officers, led by Mark Romero. They learn that the Engineer is insane and devoted to a figure he calls "the Black Mother," who supposedly has a plan to transform the world in her own image. As Mark and his colleagues try to figure out if this is simply the product of a deranged mind, strange and disturbing things begin happening at the black site. Mark himself begins to have nightmarish encounters with the Black Mother. Too late to stop it, Mark must accept that the Engineer's stories about the Black Mother may herald her arrival and that her horrific attempt to transform the world is about to begin.
"Black Site, Black Mother is a terrifyingly crafted vision of a man questioning not only his own morality, but that of his co-workers, his country, and their enemy, all the while failing to take notice that beyond man's inhumanity, something monstrous lurks in the darkness, waiting to take advantage of the pain and madness. Ryan Rennik's slow burn novel of personal apocalypse is steeped in the lore of Lovecraftian Horror but is more than capable of standing on its own, and sets Rennik in the same class as James Moore, Brian Keene, and Mary SanGiovanni, carving out a new and distinct cosmic horror mythology." -Peter Rawlik, author of The Cthulhu Heresy and Other Lovecraftian Sins
"Black Site, Black Mother deftly balances various genre conceits-it's a found document novel, a claustrophobic military thriller, and a Lovecraftian work of cosmic horror. Lean, expertly paced, and teeming with hypnagogic visions of weird grotesquerie, this is a freakily compelling read." -Mike Thorn, author of Peel Back and See
