Siblings George and Lacey's parents are getting divorced so things haven't been great. When both parents are due to be working, the siblings are taken to stay with a friend of the family (Uncle Zeedie) who is staying in a remote mansion in the Welsh woods. As soon as they get there, both George and Lacey know that something isn't quite right, and their fears are confirmed the longer they stay there: rotten food, the smell of sour milk, blood stains and posters for missing children. When George starts seeing the ghosts of dead children, they fear that Uncle Zeedie is the one who's killing them.
Uncle Zeedie is the second instalment of The Blood Texts series (you can read my review of You'd Better Watch Out here) and is certainly not for the faint hearted! The creepy atmosphere is evident from the very start, even before George and Lacey arrive at the house, and it continues to build: the darkness, the lack of phone signal, the lack of people... Then we have to look at how the characters add to the atmosphere: George is clearly spooked by lots of things, stemming from an incident at a train station; and there's the Feeling he gets and the things he sees that others don't seem to be able to - it all sets readers on edge. We know from the start that Lacey and George find Uncle Zeedie 'weird' and this is confirmed when we meet him: there's definitely something not right in the way he is behaving.
At 168 pages, Uncle Zeedie is a fast-paced, short read that will set your heart racing. Publishing on the 4th September it's a book to read during daylight hours (unless you're feeling particularly brave!) and is perfect for KS3.
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