Something Is Killing the Children is already a best-selling comic book series. Now it’s getting the novel treatment.
Crown Publishing Group, in partnership with Boom! Studios, will publish Hope is a Knife: A Novel, set within the world of Something Is Killing the Children, bringing the book to stores Oct. 10, 2026.
Series author and co-creator James Tynion IV is writing the book with horror novelist Kiersten White. White may be best known for The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein, which won the 2018 Bram Stoker Award in the young adult category and for Star Wars: Padawan, which hit the top of the New York Times bestsellers list.
The ongoing comic, drawn by Werther Dell’Edera, debuted in 2019 from Boom! and quickly became one of the biggest indie comics hits in years. The book tells the story of Erica Slaughter, a monster-survivor-turned-hunter, as she turns her back on the secret society she was once part of. The comic has won three Eisner Awards and spawned an second, best-selling, title.
Blumhouse is developing a live-action feature and an adult animated series based on the book. The new novel, a prequel to the story begun in the comic’s first issue, becomes the latest prong in the expanding so-called Slaughterverse.
“Something Is Killing the Children has always been about how we process and react to horror in the world around us, and it has been a thrill to work with Kiersten to use prose to dig into the deepest, darkest parts of Erica Slaughter’s psychology,” said Tynion in a statement. “I’m so excited for new readers to enter the Slaughterverse through this novel, and for longtime fans to experience an Erica Slaughter story unlike any they’ve seen before.”
Per the book’s logline, Slaughter “has a very straightforward job: find the monster, kill the monster, then do it all again. But when she arrives in Badwater, Idaho, nothing is simple. She can’t determine whether the horrific death of a twelve-year-old was caused by a bear, a person, or something much worse. Complicating matters is the charismatic doomsday preacher who is quickly leading the small town to the verge of hysteria. If Erica wants to save the surviving children, she has to figure out which kid’s fears might have summoned a monster—and fast.”
“Erica Slaughter is one of the most compelling characters in modern horror,” stated White. “Writing Hope Is a Knife meant embracing the raw terror and moral complexity of her world, where children’s fears are deadly real and survival demands impossible choices.”
Boom! and Tynion were repped by UTA in the book deal. White is repped by Wolfson Literary. Lori Kusatzky at Crown will edit the novel.
UK and Commonwealth rights were acquired by Del Rey UK. Translation rights are being handled by UTA.
Check out the book’s cover below.
Something is Killing the Children by James Tynion IV and Kiersten White
Courtesy of Crown Publishing
