Aschwood Academy: the Bloodline

Book excerpt: Amsden Ironwrought is a master blacksmith living in a remote village in Ancient Egypt. Ethan Samuels is an ordinary, fourteen year-old boy living in modern-day Chicago. Though two thousand years separate their intertwined timelines, the two of them have more in common than they would expect.Ethan has spent the last fourteen years of his life moving from city to city with his mother, but after finally laying roots in Chicago, his life seems to have settled down. In a snowy alleyway, an unexpected mugging plunges Ethan into the magical world of the Bloodline and whisks him away to Aschwood Academy, a school for the magically gifted. There, he befriends a quirky mix of loyal friends and finds himself in the midst of a plot by the Blood Host to steal one of the most powerful relics in the world.Amsden's tale centers upon the creation of those very relics nearly two thousand years ago. A group of ambitious foreigners have discovered an unknown material near his homeland that grants them near god-like powers, and the men conquer and mercilessly rule the land fueled by the talismans they had Amsden create. Enraged by the stories of brutality and chaos, he decides to use the powers he has secretly acquired and bring the fight to them.Aschwood Academy: The Bloodline is the debut children's, fantasy novel by M. B. Cohen and is the first book in the Aschwood Academy series.