Escape the Tower: Once in a Full Moon by Ellen Schreiber

Published 2010 by Katherine Tegen Books
ISBN 978-0-0619-8650-5
292 pages
Series? Yes
Rating: PG-13

Celeste Parker is used to hearing scary stories about werewolves- Legend's Run is famous for them. She's used to everything in the small town until Brandon Maddox moves to Legend's Run and Celeste finds herself immediately drawn to the handsome new student. But when, after a unnerving visit with a psychic, she encounters a pack of wolves and gorgeous , enigmatic Brandon, she must discover whether his transformation is more than a legend or just a trick in the shadows in the moonlight.

Her best friends may never forgive her if she gives up her perfect boyfriend, Nash, for Brandon, who's from the wrong Sid of town. But she can't deny her attraction or the strong pull he has on her. Brandon may be Celeste's hero, or he may be the most dangerous creature she could encounter in the woods of Legend's Run.

Psychic predictions, generations-old secrets, a town divided, and the possibility of falling in love with a hot and heroic werewolf are the perfect formula for what happens . . . Once in a full moon.

Cover. There is something about this cover that just rocks. I don't know if it is the awesome multi-style font, the scary cool trees on the bottom, or the huge picture of the main character in the cut-out of the moon but the cover is what pulled me in. The fact that I had read some of the authors work before and liked it did not hurt either. It was interesting and it was a different direction than the last series that she wrote that starred vampires.

Plot. They story could have been done better. It starts out with a promise of a powerful female lead. Despite the fact that her friends like to shop and dress up the three of them are able to get along. They are not popular but they do like sports and have school spirit. She has a habit of writing down ideas that she wants to make into books later. Then for some reason that I can't remember the three girls and their boyfriends make a bet. Celeste and her two best friends have to go to a psychic and come back with a receipt or else they have to be their slaves for a day. They go and Ivy and Abby get the generic prediction but Celeste gets the weird one. Well long story short Celeste decides to walk to her house, gets caught in a snowstorm, almost attacked by wolves and saved, and while she is in the woods somehow loses all traces of a personality as well.

Characters. Over the course of the first half of the book she and Brandon meet maybe twice and they don't really speak at all. The only way that Celeste is able to learn about Brandon is in her imagination where she gives him all sorts of personality traits that she just so happens to lack in her current boyfriend. Hmm, is the author trying to tell us something? The characters that in the beginning were actual people are turned into little more than caricatures. They each have a very one-dimensional personality and without the lobotomy the plot would never be able to go anywhere. Celeste is only interested in Brandon and despite her dream to be a writer is unable to describe their kisses in any word other then heaven. Nash is obsessed with Celeste and supposed to feel sorry for talking and laughing to his ex-girlfriend when surrounded by a bunch of guys which Celeste calls cheating later on. Her friends suddenly turn out to be two of the most popular people in school with no regard to their friend's happiness because of their obsession with the social status staying the same. I have no idea who Brandon was except for the fact that the little I did learn made him out to be who Nash was portrayed in the beginning before the above mentioned medical procedure. That and another guy who likes to think that he knows what is good for other people. Talk about annoying.

Recommendation? No.