Something Is Killing the Children: Hope Is a Knife Is Coming to Revenge Of

Agents, the signal coming out of Badwater, Idaho is bad.

The kind of bad that arrives with blood, unanswered questions, and a monster that only children may be able to see.

Something Is Killing the Children: Hope Is a Knife brings Erica Slaughter out of the panels and into her first full-length prose novel on October 13, 2026. Written by Eisner Award-winning series co-creator James Tynion IV and #1 New York Times bestselling author Kiersten White, this standalone prequel opens a chilling new file in the Slaughterverse.

There are two physical versions headed toward the Base Station, including a Direct Market Edition exclusive to comic shops. An audiobook will also be released for Agents who prefer to enter the dark with headphones on.

Here is the full transmission.

As a Black Mask, Erica Slaughter has a clear mission: find the monster, kill the monster, and move on before anyone learns what really happened.

Her latest assignment takes her to Badwater, where a twelve-year-old boy has been brutally murdered. The official explanation points to a bear, but Erica knows there may be something much worse hiding beyond ordinary sight.

If a monster is responsible, then one of Badwater’s children may be summoning it through their fear. Erica needs to identify that child before the creature kills again.

The mission gets even more dangerous when a charismatic doomsday preacher pushes the frightened town toward hysteria. While Erica searches for the truth, the people of Badwater are reaching for their pitchforks.

The clock is running out. If Erica cannot contain the threat, both the town and the Order of St. George may reach the same conclusion: to stop the monster, they have to kill the girl.

Collectors, this is your priority target.

The Something Is Killing the Children: Hope Is a Knife Direct Market Edition features a unique cover by series artist Werther Dell’Edera and is available exclusively through participating comic shops.

It is also connected to a special signed-bookplate promotion.

Orders placed prior to the Final Order Confirmation deadline will receive a bookplate signed by James Tynion IV and Kiersten White. Those bookplates are intended for customers who order the Direct Market Edition.

Here is the important intel:

• Only the Direct Market Edition qualifies.

• Standard editions do not qualify.

• Audiobook orders do not qualify.

• Bookplates are tied to qualifying retailer orders and are not unlimited.

• Preordering before FOC gives you the best opportunity to secure one.

If the exclusive cover and signed bookplate belong in your Quantum Archive, lock in the Direct Market Edition with Revenge Of before the FOC portal closes.

The standard edition of Hope Is a Knife will be available with its regular cover in hardcover, or a trade paperback.

This is not a prose adaptation of an existing comic storyline. It is an original prequel that expands Erica Slaughter’s history and the mythology surrounding the Order of St. George.

For longtime readers, it is a chance to follow Erica into a new medium and uncover another brutal chapter from her past. For new readers, it offers a complete entry point into the world without requiring a stack of previous mission files.

Of course, we suspect you may want that stack once you finish.

Prefer to receive your horror transmissions through headphones? Something Is Killing the Children: Hope Is a Knife will also be available as an audiobook.

Narrated by Kristen DiMercurio, the approximately eight-hour production brings the nightmare of Badwater to life in audio. It is scheduled to arrive alongside the standard hardcover on October 13, 2026.

Lights off. Headphones on. Good luck.

Since its debut, Something Is Killing the Children has become an internationally bestselling, Eisner Award-winning horror phenomenon. At the center of it all is Erica Slaughter, a relentless monster hunter who saves children from creatures that most adults cannot see.

Hope Is a Knife brings that nightmare into prose while preserving everything that makes the comics hit so hard: creeping dread, impossible monsters, frightened children, dangerous adults, and Erica standing between them all.

You do not need to have read the comics to enter Badwater. The novel is designed as a standalone supernatural thriller for established Agents and first-time recruits alike.

Something Is Killing the Children: Hope Is a Knife arrives October 13, 2026.

Choose your entry point:

• Direct Market Edition with an exclusive Werther Dell’Edera cover

• Standard print edition

• Audiobook narrated by Kristen DiMercurio

Agents seeking the Direct Market Edition and its potential signed bookplate should place their preorders with Revenge Of before FOC. Once the order window closes, the final quantities are locked.

The dark is waiting.

Make sure your copy is waiting at the Base Station, too.