Just Add Water by Hunter Shea

Description

GROW AMAZING LIVE SEA SERPENTS!

It’s fun! It’s easy! They only cost a measly dollar. Just clip out the ad in your comic book. Then ask Mom to mail it in. A few weeks later, receive a packet of instant Sea Serpent dust. Then:

Just add water . . . and watch them grow!

WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

Just ask David and Patrick. Their “instant pets” are instant duds. They don’t hatch, they don’t grow, they don’t do anything. So they dump them into the sewer where Dad pours toxic chemicals . . .

WAIT UNTIL FEEDING TIME.

It’s been years since David and Patrick thought about those Sea Serpents. But now, small animals are disappearing in the neighborhood. Strange slimy creatures are rising from the sewers. And once the screaming starts, David and Patrick realize that their childhood pets really did come to life. With a vengeance. They’re enormous . . . and have a ravenous hunger for human flesh . . .

 

This was a quick, creepy read that once again takes my mind back to classic 80s horror, and I loved it.  Having previously read The Jersey Devil by the same author I was hopeful that Just Add Water would be a ridiculous amount of fun to read, and I was not disappointed.

I still remember all those ads in comics and magazines for "sea monkeys" (which were total duds by the way) that showed fantastic tiny sea families frolicking in their little cities. Apparently Hunter Shea remembers them too. Here we have not sea monkeys but sea serpents that will hatch with very little care.. just add water. Of course it doesn't work out that way at all and soon the neighborhood is over run with vicious hungry monsters that eat everything in sight. 

 

I received an advance copy for review.