Best Teen & Young Adult Country Life eBooks

If you're forced to marry an enemy prince, being the crown princess is useless.

A Land Remembered has become Florida's favorite novel. In VOLUME 1, meet young Zech MacIvey, who learns to ride like the wind through the Florida scrub on Ishmael, his marshtackie horse, with his dogs, Nip and Tuck, at his side. In VOLUME 2, with the birth of Zech and Glenda's son, Solomon, a new generation of MacIveys learns to ride horses, drive cattle, and teach rustlers a thing or two. A teacher's manual is available for using A Land Remembered to teach languagearts, social studies, and science coordinated with the Sunshine State Standards of the Florida Department of Education.

Each summer Joey and his sister, Mary Alice—two city slickers from Chicago—visit Grandma Dowdel's seemingly sleepy Illinois town. From seeing their first corpse (and he isn't resting easy) to helping Grandma trespass, catch the sheriff in his underwear, and feed the hungry—all in one day—Joey and Mary Alice have nine summers they'll never forget! Although the narrator, Joey, and his younger sister, Mary Alice, live in the Windy city during the reign of Al Capone and Bugs Moran, most of their adventures occur "a long way from Chicago," during their annual down-state visits with Grandma Dowdel. Readers will be eager to join the trio of Grandma, Joey and Mary Alice on such escapades as preparing an impressive funeral for Shotgun Cheatham, catching fish from a stolen boat and arranging the elopement of Vandalia Eubanks and Junior Stubbs. Whether it's scaring a pretentious newspaper man back to the city or stealing the sheriff's boat and sailing right past him as he drunkenly dances with his buddies at the Rod & Gun Club, she never ceases to amaze her grandchildren with her gall and cunning behavior.

"Dust piles up like snow across the prairie. A terrible accident has transformed Billie Jo's life, scarring her inside and out. In this compelling, immediate journal, Billie Jo reveals the grim domestic realities of living during the years of constant dust storms: That hopes--like the crops--blow away in the night like skittering tumbleweeds. Perhaps swallowing all that grit is what gives Billie Jo--our strong, endearing, rough-cut heroine--the stoic courage to face the death of her mother after a hideous accident that also leaves her piano-playing hands in pain and permanently scarred.

Shadowhunters and demons square off for the final showdown in the spellbinding, seductive conclusion to the #1 New York Times bestselling Mortal Instruments series—now with a gorgeous new cover, a map, a new foreword, and exclusive bonus content! The beach in Los Angeles—white sand, crashing blue water, you’re strolling along the tide line . The boy sitting across from him sighed and ran his hands through his shaggy dark hair. Though it was a cold December day, werewolves didn’t feel weather as acutely as humans, and Jordan had his jacket off and his shirtsleeves rolled up. They were seated opposite each other on a patch of browning grass in a clearing in Central Park, both cross-legged, their hands on their knees, palms up. As Jace looked up, Isabelle caught his eye and gave him an encouraging wave. He smiled to himself—neither of them really had a reason to be here, but they had come anyway, “for moral support.” Though, Jace suspected it had more to do with the fact that Alec hated to be at loose ends these days, Isabelle hated for her brother to be on his own, and both of them were avoiding their parents and the Institute. Jace took his hands off his knees—the lotus position was giving him wrist cramps—and leaned back on his arms. Chilly wind rattled the few dead leaves that still clung to the branches of the trees. Against the pale winter sky the leaves had a spare elegance, like pen and ink sketches. Below the sleeves of his shirt, the tattoos that wrapped his arms were visible. The fire in his veins made his mind race too, thoughts coming too quickly, one after another, like exploding fireworks. But he hadn’t managed to do much more than irritate Alec with requests for healing runes and, on one memorable occasion, accidentally set fire to one of the crossbeams. It was Simon who had pointed out that his roommate meditated every day, and who’d said that learning the habit was what had calmed the uncontrollable fits of rage that were often part of the transformation into a werewolf. The first session had ended with Jace burning a mark into Simon and Jordan’s hardwood floor, so Jordan had suggested they take it outside for the second round to prevent further property damage. I know what brings me peace, and it isn’t sandy beaches or chirping birds in rain forests. Jace threw his hands up and stood, brushing grass off his jeans. “Now you get it.” He heard the crackle of dry grass and turned, in time to see Clary duck through a gap between two trees and emerge into the clearing, Simon only a few steps behind her. He remembered the second time he had ever seen Clary, across the main room of Java Jones. He remembered the unfamiliar twist of jealousy in his chest, pressing out his breath, the feeling of satisfaction when she’d left Simon behind to come and talk to him. He’d gone from being eaten up with jealousy of Simon, to a grudging respect for his tenacity and courage, to actually considering him a friend, though he doubted he’d ever say so out loud. Jace watched as Clary looked over and blew him a kiss, her red hair bouncing in its ponytail. She headed toward Jace and Jordan, leaving Simon to scamper up the rocky ground to where Alec and Isabelle were sitting; he collapsed beside Isabelle, who immediately leaned over to say something to him, her black curtain of hair hiding her face. Clary stopped in front of Jace, rocking back on her heels with a smile. “Without me you’d be bouncing down Madison Avenue, shooting sparks out of all your orifices.” He rose to his feet, shrugging on his green jacket. “Got to meet Maia downtown.” He gave a mock salute and was gone, slipping into the trees and vanishing with the silent tread of the wolf he was under the skin. Six months ago he wouldn’t have believed anyone who’d told him he was going to wind up taking behavioral lessons from a werewolf. Jordan and Simon and Jace had struck up something of a friendship in the past months. Jace couldn’t help using their apartment as a refuge, away from the daily pressures of the Institute, away from the reminders that the Clave was still unprepared for war with Sebastian. The word brushed the back of Jace’s mind like the touch of a feather, making him shiver. He saw an angel’s wing, torn from its body, lying in a pool of golden blood. “What’s wrong?” Clary said; Jace suddenly looked a million miles away. Since the heavenly fire had entered his body, he’d tended to drift off more into his head. She felt a little pang—Jace, when she had met him, had been so controlled, only a little of his real self leaking out through the cracks in his personal armor, like light through the chinks in a wall. Now, though, the fire in his veins was forcing him to put them back up, to bite down on his emotions for safety’s sake. The winter sun was high and cold; it sharpened the bones of his face and threw the shadows under his eyes into relief. His skin felt warm under her touch; he seemed to run several degrees hotter than normal since his encounter with Glorious. His heart still pounded its familiar, steady rhythm, but the blood being pushed through his veins seemed to thrum under her touch with the kinetic energy of a fire just about to catch. She went up on her toes to kiss his cheek, but he turned, and their lips brushed. They’d done nothing more than kiss since the fire had first started singing in his blood, and they’d done even that carefully. Jace was careful now, his mouth sliding softly against hers, his hand closing on her shoulder. He moved to pull her closer, and a sharp, dry spark passed between them, like the zing of static electricity. Jace bowed while Clary stepped back slightly sheepishly, hooking her thumbs into the belt of her jeans. “Unfortunately, that’s the only kind of friends we have.” Clary bumped her shoulder against his arm, and they headed up toward the rocks. Alec was sitting a little apart, staring at the screen of his phone with an expression of intense concentration. He looked smaller these days, almost skinny in his worn blue pullover, holes at the elbows, his lips bitten and chapped. He’d spent the first week after Magnus had broken up with him in a sort of daze of sadness and disbelief. Jace threw a handful of dead leaves at Alec, making him splutter. Under normal circumstances Jace would have killed, or at least threatened, anyone who hurt Alec; this was different. Alec protested and reached for it, but Jace held him off with one hand, expertly scrolling through the messages on the phone with the other. The Clave keeps wanting to hear what happened when we fought Sebastian at the Burren. We’ve all had to give accounts, like, fifty times. Descriptions of the Dark Shadowhunters, the Infernal Cup, the weapons they used, the runes that were on them. “Always good to know the Clave has a well-thought-out and reliable plan.” For a moment she regretted her words, remembering that Robert Lightwood was the new Inquisitor. A small force, scattered—they don’t want to believe he’s really a threat. She hadn’t dreamed much since they’d come back from the Burren with Jace’s veins full of fire, but when she did have nightmares, they were about her brother. “I heard Mom say that the warlocks of the Spiral Labyrinth have been looking for a way to reverse the effects of the Infernal Cup,” said Isabelle. The bodies of the Dark Shadowhunters killed at the Burren had been brought back to the Bone City for the Silent Brothers to examine. Isabelle found her voice again: “And the Iron Sisters are churning out weapons. In the days immediately following the battle at the Burren, when the fire had raged through Jace’s veins violently enough to make him scream sometimes with the pain, the Silent Brothers had examined him over and over, had tested him with ice and flame, with blessed metal and cold iron, trying to see if there was some way to draw the fire out of him, to contain it. The fire of Glorious, having once been captured in a blade, seemed in no hurry to inhabit another, or indeed to leave Jace’s body for any kind of vessel. Brother Zachariah had told Clary that in the earliest days of Shadowhunters, the Nephilim had sought to capture heavenly fire in a weapon, something that could be wielded against demons. They had never managed it, and eventually seraph blades had become their weapons of choice. Glorious’s fire lay curled in Jace’s veins like a serpent, and the best he could hope for was to control it so that it didn’t destroy him. The loud beep of a text message sounded; Isabelle had flicked on her phone again. you know, Christmas?” She thought back suddenly to the rather distressing Thanksgiving dinner at Luke’s when Jace, on being asked to carve the turkey, had laid into the bird with a sword until there had been little left but turkey flakes. I think Shadowhunters got annoyed with being left out of all the mundane celebrations, though, so a lot of Institutes have Christmas parties. Of course they didn’t want to celebrate Christmas after losing Max. Jace sighed, and kissed Clary—a quick good-bye brush of lips against her temple, but it made her shiver. Not being able to touch Jace or kiss him properly was starting to make her jump out of her own skin. The Frays had never been a religiously observant family, but Clary loved Fifth Avenue at Christmastime. The air smelled like sweet roasted chestnuts, and the window displays sparkled with silver and blue, green and red. This year there were fat round crystal snowflakes attached to each lamppost, sending back the winter sunlight in shafts of gold. It threw its shadow across them when she and Simon draped themselves over the gate at the side of the skating rink, watching tourists fall down as they tried to navigate the ice. Clary had a hot chocolate wrapped in her hands, the warmth spreading through her body. She felt almost normal—this, coming to Fifth to see the window displays and the tree, had been a winter tradition for her and Simon for as long as she could remember. “Feels like old times, doesn’t it?” he said, echoing her thoughts as he propped his chin on his folded arms. He was wearing a black topcoat and scarf that emphasized the pallor of his skin. His eyes were shadowed, indicating that he hadn’t fed on blood recently. Simon was a musician; even though his band was terrible, and was always changing their name—currently they were Lethal Soufflé—he did have training. I’m going to see if there’s a music store around here.” Clary, done with her hot chocolate, tossed the cup into a nearby trash can and pulled her phone out. They had started heading toward the avenue, where a steady stream of pedestrians gawking at the windows clogged the streets. In the meantime—perfume!” Clary grabbed Simon by the back of his coat and hauled him into a cosmetics store. Figs have a smell?” Simon looked horrified; Clary was about to laugh at him when her phone buzzed. Even though, as Clary had pointed out, Jace was probably the safest boyfriend in the world since he was pretty much banned from (1) getting angry, (2) making sexual advances, and (3) doing anything that would produce an adrenaline rush. On the other hand, he had been possessed; she and her mother had both watched while he’d stood by and let Sebastian attack Luke. “There is so much in this store I can picture Magnus wanting,” Simon said, picking up a glass bottle of body glitter suspended in some kind of oil. “Alec remembers my name,” said Simon, and he set the bottle back down. “You’ve waited a long time to make your move, Fray, I’ll say that for you.”. Clary didn’t bother with a smart retort; she was still thinking of what Simon had said about forgiveness, and remembering someone else, someone else’s voice and face and eyes. “Do you really think Isabelle wants to smell like a dried fruit plate?”. “I don’t like the thought of you going away.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat. And besides, how long would it take everyone at school to notice they were getting older but I wasn’t? “I would have gotten you pencils usually, art supplies, but you don’t draw anymore, do you, except with your stele? “I haven’t heard anything from the Dumort bunch since Maureen took over from Camille. Before Clary could answer, she heard someone call out her name; thoroughly puzzled, she looked over and saw her mother shoving her way through a crowd of shoppers. In his flannel shirt he looked out of place among the stylish New Yorkers. Breaking free of the crowd, Jocelyn caught up to them and threw her arms around Clary. Clary felt a sudden cold wash through her veins, as if she’d swallowed icy water. Jace used an Open rune to get in through the front door, took the stairs two at a time, and buzzed Magnus’s apartment bell. Two more long buzzes, and Magnus finally yanked the door open, looking furious. You must be the—what, fourth?—of you lot to bother me.” Magnus counted off on his long fingers. “I don’t have a relationship with Alec,” said Magnus flatly, but Jace had already shouldered past him and was in his living room, looking around curiously. One of the things Jace had always secretly liked about Magnus’s apartment was that it rarely looked the same way twice. Sometimes it looked like a French bordello, or a Victorian opium den, or the inside of a spaceship. Stacks of old Chinese food cartons littered the coffee table. Chairman Meow lay on the rag rug, all four legs sticking straight out in front of him like a dead deer. “That’s the Chinese food.” Magnus threw himself onto the sofa and stretched out his long legs. “Oh, he won’t sneak around behind my back with one of my exes planning to shorten my life again? “He won’t lie to you or mislead you or hide things from you or whatever it is you’re actually upset about.” He threw himself into a wingback leather chair and raised an eyebrow. “What do I care?” Jace said, so loudly that Chairman Meow sat bolt upright as if he’d been shocked. “I care about Alec,” Jace said, fixing Magnus with an unswerving gaze. “Don’t you ever think,” Magnus mused, pulling at a bit of peeling fingernail polish, “that the whole parabatai business is rather cruel? And though your parabatai is the closest person in the world to you in some ways, you can’t fall in love with them. All fragile nobility and humanity on one side, and all the thoughtless fire of angels on the other.” His eyes flicked toward Jace. Most people are afraid of you, or they seem to owe you something or you slept with them once, but friends—I don’t see you having a lot of those.”. “If you mean do I suddenly feel compelled to get back together with Alec, no,” said Magnus. “If I wanted to lie on a couch and complain to someone about my parents, I’d hire a psychiatrist.”. “I’m going to take a nap.” He reached out for a crumpled blanket lying on the floor, just as Jace’s phone rang. Magnus watched, arrested midmotion, as Jace dug around in his pocket and flipped the phone open. “Come back,” Isabelle said, and Jace sat up straight, the pillow tumbling to the floor. He could hear the sharpness in it, like the off notes of a badly tuned piano. He saw golden blood, and white feathers scattered across a marble floor. He remembered the apartment, a knife in his hands, the world at his feet, Sebastian’s grip on his wrist, those fathomless black eyes looking at him with dark amusement. There were dozens of unfamiliar coats and jackets hanging in the entryway of the Institute. Clary felt the tight buzzing of tension in her shoulders as she unzipped her own wool coat and hung it on one of the hooks that lined the walls. Jocelyn had unwound a long gray scarf from around her neck, and barely looked as Luke took it from her to drape it on a hook. Her green eyes were darting around the room, taking in the gate of the elevator, the arched ceiling overhead, the faded murals of men and angels. “It’s the ‘we’ part that concerns me.” Jocelyn wound her hair up into a knot at the back of her head, and secured it with her fingers. She hadn’t seen her brother since the fight at the Burren, but she carried him in some small part of her mind, an intrusive, unwelcome ghost. Someone had pushed back all the furniture in the library, clearing a large space in the middle of the room, just atop the mosaic of the Angel. A massive table had been placed there, a huge slab of marble balanced on top of two kneeling stone angels. Some members, like Kadir and Maryse, Clary knew by name. Maryse was standing, ticking off names on her fingers as she chanted aloud. Maryse looked startled, as if she hadn’t realized Jocelyn had come in. She looked drawn and exhausted, her hair scraped back severely, a stain—red wine or blood?—on the sleeve of her tailored jacket. “Helen,” said Alec, and Clary thought of the girl who had fought with them against Sebastian at the Burren. She remembered her in the nave of the Institute, a dark-haired boy clinging to her wrist. “Aline’s girlfriend,” Clary blurted out, and saw the Conclave look at her with thinly veiled hostility. Would you?” Jocelyn’s eyes met Maryse’s, and Clary wondered if this was how it had been when they’d both been in the Circle, the sharp edges of their personalities rubbing up against each other, causing sparks. He was flushed with the cold, bareheaded, fair hair tousled by the wind. His hands were gloveless, red at the tips from the weather, scarred with Marks new and old. He saw Clary and gave her a quick smile before settling into a chair propped against the wall. Her heart was pounding, sick in her chest; yet at the same time there was a strange sense of relief. “The Clave has called for immediate evacuation,” said Maryse, and at that, everyone went silent, even Jace. Some of her usual imperious air was back, her mouth a thin line, her jaw set with determination. Cassandra Clare is the #1 New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of Lord of Shadows and Lady Midnight , as well as the internationally bestselling Mortal Instruments series and Infernal Devices trilogy. She is the coauthor of The Bane Chronicles with Sarah Rees Brennan and Maureen Johnson and Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy with Sarah Rees Brennan, Maureen Johnson, and Robin Wasserman, as well as The Shadowhunter’s Codex, which she cowrote with her husband, Joshua Lewis. Her books have more than 50 million copies in print worldwide and have been translated into more than thirty-five languages, a feature film, and a TV show, Shadowhunters , currently airing on Freeform.

“Every war has turning points and every person too.” Fifteen-year-old Daisy is sent from Manhattan to England to visit her aunt and cousins she’s never met: three boys near her age, and their little sister. Possibly one of the most talked about books of the year, Meg Rosoff's novel for young adults is the winner of the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize 2004. Heralded by some as the next best adult crossover novel since Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time , who himself has given the book a thunderously good quote, this author's debut is undoubtedly stylish, readable and fascinating. Rosoff's story begins in modern day London, slightly in the future, and as its heroine has a 15-year-old Manhattanite called Daisy. Daisy's candid, intelligent narrative draws readers into her very private world, which appears almost utopian at first with no adult supervision (especially by contrast with her home life with her widowed father and his new wife). The heroine finds herself falling in love with cousin Edmond, and the author credibly creates a world in which social taboos are temporarily erased. When soldiers usurp the farm, they send the girls off separately from the boys, and Daisy becomes determined to keep herself and her youngest cousin, Piper, alive.