Conflicted

I love Sarah Noffke's work. I love the Dream Travellers world and the characters created. But I'm having a hard time liking The Lucidites series. Overall, the plots are interesting and complex, but it's the characters that I'm disliking. Roya is 16 years old, and she is the centre of attention, basically, for four men - two her age, and two older. Now, on the one hand I can understand that Roya craves love because she grew up in basically a loveless home, so I can see her falling for any guy who flirts with her. But these four men are selfish and only want what's best for them.

Roya's in love with Aiden, the head scientist of the Institute, so he's got to be in his 20s if not older. There's this overwhelming desire between the two of them, but Aiden lets it go to a certain point and then backs away, saying he can't jeopardize his career, and it would be over if anyone of his peers, or his boss, found out. So, he runs hot and cold with Roya, which of course, frustrates and confuses her. Then there's George, a guy her approximate age, one of her team. He knows, because he's an empath, that she is in love with Aiden and is confused over everything going on with that. However, George tells her he's in love with her, but also tells her that he knows that she's trying to figure out things with Aiden and he won't stand in her way and will give her time to figure things out. But, the very next meeting he's again trying to press his suit with her. Again, selfish. She has feelings for him as well, which is one reason she's so confused, but neither man is giving her the time or the space to figure things out. Not that Roya is entirely blameless in this - when Aiden goes cold on her, she turns to George, but still can't stop thinking about Aiden so ends up back trying to get things the way she wants with him.

Then there's Joseph. Another selfish male. He tells her that he has a top secret project that he's working on that he needs her help with (ie., her energy), but he won't tell her what it is, even when he, occasionally shows up looking like he's three days dead and the cat has dragged him through a keyhole backwards. He gets royally angry with Roya when she tries to get him to tell him what he's doing that's causing him to look this way, and then threatens to leave the Institute so that he can't use her energy for it. So, he's being stubborn and selfish, even though Roya is doing this because she's concerned about him.

And finally (for this anyway), there's the bad guy, Chase. The Voyageur the team fought with in the first book who decides, because Roya managed to basically stalemate him, that she's his soul mate and he's going to have her or kill everyone she loves to get her. The problem is, he's using technology on her to make her think that she's in love with him, or at least in heavy, panting lust with him, because he wants her. This world's version of the date rape drug if you will. And again, she seems helpless to sort out her emotions and think things through.

I think one of the reasons that this irritates me so much is because Roya is such a strong character that it feels like these men were developed because she had to have a weakness. She wants to be wanted, and desired, and loved. And I get that. Unfortunately this scenario, for me, is like Laurel K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series, where in every book Anita seems to acquire a new member of her entourage that tells her their sanity or life, or whatever, depends on her having sex with them .... for the good of the pack, and pressuring her into just that. I get that Roya has a difficult fight against Chase and his emotional manipulation of her feelings. What I don't like is that it is due to Chase seeing her as a formidable adversary and thinking that he can overpower her in this way. I'm sorry, I realize men like that don't care what it does to the woman, and probably, honestly don't care that they might as well be having sex with a sex doll no matter what reaction the woman is giving off - because you are controlling how she thinks and reacts. And I don't like how selfish the others are in wanting her but not really allowing her to figure out her feelings without trying to manipulate her as well.

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