I want to start by saying I feel the first two books in this series are middlegrade fantasy and this book is more young adult fantasy. In Dark Whispers, Bruce Coville has added a wiseness and maturity to Cara that seemed False in the first two books. Cara must face the reality of real loss in Dark Whispers and I found that I cared more because not everything was sunshine and roses.
I really enjoyed this trip to Luster. The storyline didn’t really advance that much but Coville explained SO much of the back story and the ins and outs of it all that I was okay with it. The only issue I really had was the pacing. It seemed that the first three quarters of the book crawled and then everything exciting was jammed into the last 115 pages or so. Also there was a huge cliffhanger that has me wanting to jump right into the next book!