Via The Hollywood Reporter, Crown Publishing Group has announced they will publish Hope is a Knife, a prose novel based on Something is Killing the Children. The book, written by James Tynion IV (the co-creator of the comic) and Kiersten White (Mister Magic), will follow heroine Erica Slaughter on a standalone adventure in Idaho, and be released on October 13. Check out the official synopsis after the jump:
As a Black Mask, Erica 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 killer of a twelve-year-old was 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 must get to the truth before the Order and the town come to the same conclusion: to stop the monster, you have to kill the girl.
Tynion states, “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. 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.”
White adds, “Erica Slaughter is one of the most compelling characters in modern horror. 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.”
The Slaughterverse debuted at BOOM! Studios (which is also owned by Crown’s parent company, Penguin Random House) with Something is Killing the Children in 2019. A spin-off, House of Slaughter, followed in 2021, before concluding in February, and a four-issue event series, Fall of the House of Slaughter, will begin on May 6. Also in the works are a crossover with DC’s Swamp Thing, and a movie and animated series from Blumhouse.
Previously, Tynion and Rian Sygh‘s more kid-friendly BOOM! series The Backstagers had been adapted into prose novels by Andy Mientus, alongside other BOOM! titles like Lumberjanes and Giant Days. White’s previous ventures into licensed novels include Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Star Wars, while her book Hide received a graphic novelization by Scott Peterson, Veronica, and Andy Fish at Ten Speed Graphic in 2023. An adaptation of Mister Magic, from the same creative team and publisher, will be released on June 9.
You can pre-order Hope is a Knife via its official page, linking to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and more. The book will be available in hardback, as an ebook, an audiobook, and in signed copies exclusive to B&N and Books-A-Million.
