Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing by comparison
Review: 1) Should have been titled "Transition". The rescue was good but the rest of the book failed to move the rest of the plot along. There were no new discoveries of the characters' powers or relationships.2) I'm hoping Ms.Green's character dialogue is an attempt at some type of experiment in writing like a victorian novelist. There are no dialects or differences in speech patterns anymore. The supposed farm boy's vocabulary,usage, and mannerisms are identical to the son of nobility (Lorand and Rion). And then to do what? Make writing easier? Alison Meerk suddenly loses his dialect! To prove what? that if you're an "educated" man you speak like a victorian woman? Sorry, I really liked the 1st 3 books but now its starting to get on my nerves... 3) Ms.Green needs to flesh out her laws of magic. Fire is "spectacular", Earth has a broad range of abilities, and Spirit almost as broad when dealing with "entities" and humans but all water and air seem to be able to do is suck things dry (though there was some water magic improvement this round)! Come on get creative! You've done such a great job with the basics, if you worked on the details ...
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing by comparison
Review: 1) Should have been titled "Transition". The rescue was good but the rest of the book failed to move the rest of the plot along. There were no new discoveries of the characters' powers or relationships. 2) I'm hoping Ms.Green's character dialogue is an attempt at some type of experiment in writing like a victorian novelist. There are no dialects or differences in speech patterns anymore. The supposed farm boy's vocabulary,usage, and mannerisms are identical to the son of nobility (Lorand and Rion). And then to do what? Make writing easier? Alison Meerk suddenly loses his dialect! To prove what? that if you're an "educated" man you speak like a victorian woman? Sorry, I really liked the 1st 3 books but now its starting to get on my nerves... 3) Ms.Green needs to flesh out her laws of magic. Fire is "spectacular", Earth has a broad range of abilities, and Spirit almost as broad when dealing with "entities" and humans but all water and air seem to be able to do is suck things dry (though there was some water magic improvement this round)! Come on get creative! You've done such a great job with the basics, if you worked on the details ...
Rating: 
Summary: Slightly tedious and disapointing
Review: After Challenges I wanted there to be something that moved the plot ahead. You did that. But this book doesn't come near Challenges. Partly because after you've got everyone together nothing really happens. Except Tamrissa and Vallant fighting again. Grr! If you're looking for fast paced action then you may find the second half of the book a bit boring. Oh, by the way, are the fireball, spider and air objects the 'signs' in the prophecy? I'd like to read this mysterious document. And get a satisfying ending to these really addictive books!
Rating: 
Summary: Another great book in the Blending series
Review: After FINALLY getting my hands on the 4th book, I tore through and found myself to be as totally enthralled as I was with the first 3. (And the ending wasn't as totally gut-wrenching as the ending of Challenges.) Now, if Avon would print up and release the 5th book, which is already written, I'll be set!
Rating: 
Summary: Series started fine, but deteriorates rapidly
Review: After reading the first volume in the series I was captivated. Admittedly, the description of the background world was thin (a vaguely Victorian era) and held little depth, the characterization of nobility versus commoners extremely black and white, and the main characters are straight out of a day time soap opera, but the plot was intricate enough to make you want to know more. But having finished book four I do not know if I can summon the energy to finish this series. The plot pace becomes positively glacial in places (do I really want to know all the details of all the trials they go through, especially when those trials are almost carbon copies of each other), the "magic" gets less and less believeable, the heroes are paranoid (rightly so!) and smart, but also make amazingly stupid mistakes. In short, the story doesn't seem to get more focus or congeal as the books progress. If Ms. Green had taken two books this would have been a whole lot more palateable. As an aside: the dedication to a complete platoon is nice, if maybe a bit much, but the added remark about Srebrenica is absolutely tasteless, considering what happened to the place.
Rating:
Summary: This continuation of an epic story is wonderful.
Review: After their underhanded defeat by the noble Blending, the Choosen Five, Vallant, Tamma, Lorand, Jovvi, and Rion, must rescue both themselves, their friends from training, as well as other practioners who were deemed by the nobility to be too dangerous to keep around. While our group is travelling around rescuing people and destroying guardsmen, they start discovering more and more about the limits of their powers as well as their countries actions against their neighbors and "enemies". We also learn more and more about the what their enemies are doing and thinking, as the noble Five take the throne and consolidate their power. This is an excellent continuation of an epic story that makes the reader wish for more. The character building is the most interesting part of the story, as is the way the Choosen Five deal with their problems and growing strengths. The relationships between the Choosen Five is what makes a reader stay with the story to see how it all turns out.
Rating: 
Summary: Will the preaching never end...
Review: Does there actually need to be five books in this series? In the beginning we had a great setup to a story with some great possibilities (cliched though it was), and now we're slogging through more and more contrived plot obstacles, seemingly just to extend things to fill five whole books. Our heroes suddenly develop the ability to kill dozens of people at once, so we throw in an entire additional army to deal with. Everyone starts getting along too well, so Tamma and Vallant have to fight some more (come on, a pair of eighth-graders would have settled this by now). Sigh. Every single higher-class person on the planet is still selfish and evil, almost every single peasant is completely decent and honest, almost everyone glows with love and affection like they're in a Diane Warren song, and every opportunity is taken to preach the value of self-reliance and free will. Even if they're discussing plans for an imminent battle that could start at any moment! Enough. I'll finish book 5 for completeness (and to see if those hints about a prophecy are ever explained, although I'm not counting on it), but enough is enough.
Rating:
Summary: Great book exciting but where oh where is the next one!
Review: Great story not as exciting as the thrid Competitions. But I am more then willing to latch on to the next in this series asap! I love the characters and the whole idea of each individuals powers, strengths and weakness being protrayed.
Rating:
Summary: Action entertaining, social commentary oversimplistic
Review: I enjoyed the previous three volumes a lot, and did this one too. The action is less repetitive than in "Convergence" and "Challenges" (once one or two of the Five had battled the fireball and passed the initial and subsequent tests, did we really have to read the same thing again and again?), and the storyline is enjoyable, but the relationship between the characters is becoming a bit contrived (this Scarlett/Rhett back-and-forth between Vallant and Tamryssa is getting tiresome). And it is overly simplistic to depict ALL nobles as being morally defective. No class of society (or race or gender for that matter) can be made entirely of "bad apples", and yet here there is not a single nice person among the nobility. Talk about sweeping generalization and stereotyping! I do look forward to the fifth volume though, but I hope it will be the last (too much is too much), and that Sharon Green will not forget to tie all the loose ends (who sent the fireball, the comforting "miracles" in the residence, the bird and the spider? Who's really the first Lord who taught them how to Blend? etc...) There are so many unanswered "mysteries" and so many things prophesized (The Four, for example) that have been hinted at in the preface but not mentioned again in all 1,600 or so pages published to date that I wonder how all can be resolved in one single last volume. But I can't wait! So, Avon Books, do hurry and print the last one. Do try to print a better copy though (the one I got of "Betrayals" was missing 31 pages right in the middle of the story), and a greater number of copies (most of Sharon Green's books are out of print, which I find endlessly frustrating).
Rating:
Summary: Betrayals: Book 4 of the Blending
Review: I have read the first four books in the Blending series, and although there are certain things about them that I dislike, I still seem to be driven to read the next one. I think it's because there are some unanswered questions from the first one. I am reading the last book in the series now, and I hope those questions are answered. I do like Ms. Green's type of magic, though. Her books are definitely different from other types of fantasty. I sometimes get the impression I am reading one of those Victorian romance novels.
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