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The Blending #4
Betrayals
Once tbe five elements -- Earth, Wind, Air, Fire and Spirit -- were One, when five gifted people joined their magical talents into One. When these five forces -- embodied by three men and two women -- are Blended, they are the ultimate power against the evil that threatens their world. But there is one weapon against which they cannot fight...betrayal. Betrayals On a world of magical adepts, the five greatest talents are fated to unite and rule. But Tamrissa, Jovvi, Vallant, Rion, and Lorand have been cruelly separated, struck down by treachery at the very moment of their greatest triumph. Scattered across a vast empire, the five heroes must escape their prisons and find each other again. For only then will they be able to re-create their Blending, that magical melding of their powers that will allow them to defeat their enemies...and win the path to a throne.
388 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published February 1, 1999
6 people are currently reading
210 people want to read
About the author
Sharon Green
149 books109 followersBorn and raised in Brooklyn, NY. Attended New York University and graduated with a B.A. in 1963. Married in 1963, had three sons, divorced in 1976. Raised the sons, Andy, Brian and Curtis, alone in New Jersey. Worked for AT&T as a shareowner correspondent, then as an all-around assistant in a construction company, then sold bar steel for an import firm. Left that job as assistant sales manager. I've been writing full time since 1984.
Hobbies: knitting, crocheting, Tae Kwon Do, fencing, archery, shooting, jigsaw puzzles, logic problems, math problems, not cooking.
Don't do my own research, since if I did I'd stay with that and never get any writing done. I usually can finish a novel of about 120,000 words in about three months.
Hobbies: knitting, crocheting, Tae Kwon Do, fencing, archery, shooting, jigsaw puzzles, logic problems, math problems, not cooking.
Don't do my own research, since if I did I'd stay with that and never get any writing done. I usually can finish a novel of about 120,000 words in about three months.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
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May 20, 2023Just wanted to point out a huge flaw with the conflict between Tamrissa and Vallant. About halfway through now, and my mind is blown that Tamrissa is so involved with her own emotions (avoidant attachment personality using deactivating strategies to push Ro away) that she fails to see and find sympathy with To for getting RAPED by a woman, like it doesn't exist, and instead makes the assumption he was enjoying himself before she barged in to ruin his fun. Uh, what??!! And this is glossed over and dismissed by the other members of the group, and Ro is blaming his own failed male pride and shame, not realizing what happened. Oh boy. Just, not really cool with this little breeze-by. Has anyone else noticed this????
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 13, 2016
Some major themes that are developed in the fourth round of the magical mind-fuckery that is the Blending Series:
* Using Puredan to enslave people is not OK.
* Using your Spirit Magic to enslave people is OK.
* It is now time for a refreshing cup of tea.
* The enslaved are partly (entirely?) responsible for their own enslavement, unless Puredan was involved, in which case they get a pass.
* Without tea, we are nothing. We are nothing without tea. Might we please have tea, now? (We demand tea).
* The Blending Entity will probably enslave you at some point; that's OK.
* Tea above all. Then bathing. Then class war. But first tea. TEA.
* Using Puredan to enslave people is not OK.
* Using your Spirit Magic to enslave people is OK.
* It is now time for a refreshing cup of tea.
* The enslaved are partly (entirely?) responsible for their own enslavement, unless Puredan was involved, in which case they get a pass.
* Without tea, we are nothing. We are nothing without tea. Might we please have tea, now? (We demand tea).
* The Blending Entity will probably enslave you at some point; that's OK.
* Tea above all. Then bathing. Then class war. But first tea. TEA.
March 1, 2013
The story has taken a different turn at this point, and I'm enjoying that. The conflict between Tamrissa and Vallant continues, and I'd just like to see them work things out. There is a new twist to their conflict, which could turn interesting. Can't wait to read the next book. I ordered it, and it has been shipped. Just wish it would get here.
October 25, 2014
Yet another enjoyable instalment of the Blending series. A fun, quick read!
March 10, 2024
Like the other reviews, these are nostalgic 3 star reviews. Unlike the others, I'm not sure I've read this or the next book before. This book takes a darker turn with sexual assault and various forms of slavery becoming overt signs of the evil noble class (also hanging of a family complete with children). One character even refers to commoners as animals (constantly). The body count is somewhere over 500 while the heroes are mostly fine. They don't seem to know anything about war or strategy but they keep winning, fortified by tea and baths.
As the world gets bigger and crueler, Green is losing some of the charm that kept me reading the earlier books.
As the world gets bigger and crueler, Green is losing some of the charm that kept me reading the earlier books.
November 26, 2025
I liked this series when I read it as a teenager, but it wasn't awe-inspiring even then. That probably tells you something. At that point in my life, the sex (omg it makes ther magik stronger lololol!) held my interest enough to read the whole series. These days, I probably wouldn't waste my time and would look for something else with more substance.
October 4, 2021
Nostalgia reread. And we're scaling! Bigger and better and magicker and eviler goings on. I do enjoy this very garbage popcorn so much!
January 29, 2026
Well, this one was a bit dark, but so exciting! I am going to take a break before the Blending Enthroned so I can make this series last. These characters will live on in my heart !
November 23, 2013
In Betrayals by Sharon Green, our five element mages have been separated and sent off to horrifying situations after treachery destroyed them in the competitions. Scattered, they must escape and find each other again. Only together can they meld into their Blending to fight their enemies and try to help others like themselves.
About half of the nasty cliffhangers from the last book get taken care of very quickly. Too quickly. I would have appreciated Rion spending more time dealing with his, and this desire would have been even stronger if I'd had to wait for this book to be published instead of heading right on to it from the last one. Naran becomes an all-out deus ex machina at times in this book, making me strongly suspect she has a power that's supposed to explain all the ridiculously unlikely things this series has had her doing since the first book, not that it would present enough of an excuse.
Despite all the should-be exciting events going on, a lot of it comes off rather boring as written, which takes effort. I shouldn't be skimming through dangerous rescue attempts or battles against an overwhelming number of foes. A lot of sentences unnecessarily end in ellipses in this book, especially sentences at the end of paragraphs and the end of chapters, to the point that it started to really annoy me.
Their Blending entity comes off as really sociopathic at times, and our heroes are a bit too blasé about rewriting the personalities of people or puppeteering them. It's creepy, and these are supposed to be our heroes.
Vallant, amazingly, manages to be even more of a jackass in this book than usual. Tamrissa isn't always right about things, but a lot of her extremes can be blamed on Vallant provoking her, changing his mind on things he claims he wants, and just being a jerk to feel more powerful. Now she's supposed to apologize to and court him? He's so not worth it.
Betrayals also ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, but here's where I end my run through this series, since this is the last of the books from my permanent collection I managed to find in the basement of my family home. I had a bookshelf full of such books and a few possessions sitting in the family home, and when some members of my family decided to turn the room into a bedroom they carelessly boxed up all those things, put them in the dank basement, and then everything get shuffled around down there a few times by another family member without me finding out until I visited, found my stuff gone, and outright asked what happened. (Seriously, if they'd just called me I would've taken care of these things myself.) A few months ago, several box reshufflings later, I found a group of my books at the edges of the basement box pile in an open crate, saw four books of The Blending together, assumed that was the whole series, and started reading. I suspect that at least book five is hidden in the basement somewhere. Since I don't know if the rest of my collection will eventually reveal itself and the Queens library system doesn't have anything by the author, I have no idea when (or if!) I'll go on to book five of this series.
About half of the nasty cliffhangers from the last book get taken care of very quickly. Too quickly. I would have appreciated Rion spending more time dealing with his, and this desire would have been even stronger if I'd had to wait for this book to be published instead of heading right on to it from the last one. Naran becomes an all-out deus ex machina at times in this book, making me strongly suspect she has a power that's supposed to explain all the ridiculously unlikely things this series has had her doing since the first book, not that it would present enough of an excuse.
Despite all the should-be exciting events going on, a lot of it comes off rather boring as written, which takes effort. I shouldn't be skimming through dangerous rescue attempts or battles against an overwhelming number of foes. A lot of sentences unnecessarily end in ellipses in this book, especially sentences at the end of paragraphs and the end of chapters, to the point that it started to really annoy me.
Their Blending entity comes off as really sociopathic at times, and our heroes are a bit too blasé about rewriting the personalities of people or puppeteering them. It's creepy, and these are supposed to be our heroes.
Vallant, amazingly, manages to be even more of a jackass in this book than usual. Tamrissa isn't always right about things, but a lot of her extremes can be blamed on Vallant provoking her, changing his mind on things he claims he wants, and just being a jerk to feel more powerful. Now she's supposed to apologize to and court him? He's so not worth it.
Betrayals also ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, but here's where I end my run through this series, since this is the last of the books from my permanent collection I managed to find in the basement of my family home. I had a bookshelf full of such books and a few possessions sitting in the family home, and when some members of my family decided to turn the room into a bedroom they carelessly boxed up all those things, put them in the dank basement, and then everything get shuffled around down there a few times by another family member without me finding out until I visited, found my stuff gone, and outright asked what happened. (Seriously, if they'd just called me I would've taken care of these things myself.) A few months ago, several box reshufflings later, I found a group of my books at the edges of the basement box pile in an open crate, saw four books of The Blending together, assumed that was the whole series, and started reading. I suspect that at least book five is hidden in the basement somewhere. Since I don't know if the rest of my collection will eventually reveal itself and the Queens library system doesn't have anything by the author, I have no idea when (or if!) I'll go on to book five of this series.
July 9, 2016
This book is again a bit better than its predecessors. What I feared at the end of book 3 did not happen: after the main characters get split up, there is no repetition with each member encountering the same thing. Instead, they manage to find each other again relatively quickly and get help from other people. They handle themselves relatively well, and manage to find out a lot more about what a blending can do. The blending is definitely one of the pros of the series: the magic itself is really cool, and the blending even more. One of the cons of this book is (again) the annoying misunderstandings between the characters. In this book, at least it's only between Tamrissa en Vallant and not between the others, but it's still quite irritating.
May 22, 2017
when i was fifteen, i thought this series was the shit. the writing wasn't great, but hey, the sexy parts were good, so it didn't matter that the plot was like swiss cheese sliced superthin, right? looking back, the fact that the sexy parts *are* the best parts of these books is pretty telling. the premises of the plot and characters aren't bad, and there are some parts that are actually interesting, but overall the series is repetitive and predictable, and probably not worth the time it'd take to get through all five.
April 24, 2023
Tea & a bath, anyone? I'm sensing a theme...
The Blending is becoming more interesting, if a little unpredictable at times. But, hell! it's only young & doesn't have full control of itself yet. This book is so full of double standards that my eyes are just skimming them now: this is for fun, remember? Vallant & Tamrissa should have been drowned at birth so the others could have better, less self-centred friends, but they really are so well-suited.
The Blending is becoming more interesting, if a little unpredictable at times. But, hell! it's only young & doesn't have full control of itself yet. This book is so full of double standards that my eyes are just skimming them now: this is for fun, remember? Vallant & Tamrissa should have been drowned at birth so the others could have better, less self-centred friends, but they really are so well-suited.
November 25, 2019
In a series where almost nothing happens except the drinking of vast quantities of tea – this is the book where almost nothing at all happens. Our four heroes are separated and spend the entire book trying to get back together. The end.
June 12, 2009
Getting a teensy better here. Some elements of surprise in the plotting, which is always nice. I enjoy not being able to predict what happens next. Some of the conflict is still TOTALLY ANNOYING, but whatevah... I can work around it. Still crack.
August 17, 2011
I wasn't impressed but the lack of a climax and complete storyline. The narrative read like walking over pleasant rolling hills would feel. Just...pleasant. I enjoy this author, but this was A bit too wandering.
December 14, 2011
An occasional really good turn of phrase hidden inside essentially popcorn fantasy. After book 1 they are much easier reads (even better when you stop reading the italicized intros to the chapters and books...)
September 17, 2025
Full review here:
http://jamesgenrebooks.blogspot.com/2...
Probably the strongest of the quintet, it also relies rather heavily on rape, both literal and figurative as a plot point, as well as using the Blending entity as a Deus ex Machina quite a bit.
http://jamesgenrebooks.blogspot.com/2...
Probably the strongest of the quintet, it also relies rather heavily on rape, both literal and figurative as a plot point, as well as using the Blending entity as a Deus ex Machina quite a bit.
August 24, 2021
Enjoyed this slightly more. The insight into the Opposing 5 is interesting, and all is not what it seems!!
Reread - really enjoyed reading about the opposing 5, they were far more interesting than the main characters
Reread - really enjoyed reading about the opposing 5, they were far more interesting than the main characters
January 6, 2016
Everyone finds out what has been happening to the missing Highs
The Blended Five are winning when they loose and find themselves drugged and enslaved. The Nobel Newly Seated Five also deal with dangers as they indulge in housecleaning. War rumbles in the background.
The Blended Five are winning when they loose and find themselves drugged and enslaved. The Nobel Newly Seated Five also deal with dangers as they indulge in housecleaning. War rumbles in the background.
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May 7, 2009I found a digital copy of this one.
August 18, 2009
See comment for Book 1
January 8, 2011
Nothing is ever easy. Divided, these rebels need to get back together. Another enjoyable read with magic, intrigue and power struggles.
January 1, 2015
So much tea.
July 26, 2014
One bath too many
May 7, 2015
Started 4/20/15
Rec by Andy.
Rec by Andy.
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews