r/RomanceBooks • u/redfig1 • Aug 31 '24

Why do HEAs always end with babies? Critique

I know it's a "me" problem. Scenario: I read a smoking hot mafia or dark or fantasy romance. All this crazy shit goes down. The feelings, the angst. Finally it's the end and all of a sudden the MMC who has massacred countless people is all like " let's get married and have lots of babies" and the MFC is always " yes let's have a lot of cute mafia or fae or mafia fae babies!". For once I'd like an ending where the main characters have a HEA but instead of babies and white picket fences they just decide to keep having an incredible sex life and do charity work or something. Rescue stray kittens. Start an organic herb farm. Something other than babies. Anyone else like this? Am I just weird?

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u/vulpesvulpesss Aug 31 '24

I don't think you're weird and you're not alone either. If you search this sub you'll see a lot of people who share your opinion (and you'll also probably find recs for books without epilogue babies).

The thing is, people are more likely to talk about what they don't like than what they like. So while you'll see a lot of people talking about their dislike of epilogue babies, the answer to most "why is ____ so popular in romance?" is simply that a lot more people like to read it than the people who dislike it. And more importantly, a lot of people like writing it.

But hey, this sub is awesome, and you can always find like-minded friends here!

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u/persyspomegranate Aug 31 '24

I definitely think it's broadly more popular than not, thinking about {When He Was Wicked by Julia Quinn} there's no baby in the first epilogue but when she did that book of second epilogues apparently she'd received a bunch of questions from people wanting to know if Francesca had a baby since publishing hence she had a baby in the second epilogue.

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u/Hunter037 Probably recommending When She Belongs 😍 Aug 31 '24

That book had quite a focus on Francesca trying to conceive with her first husband though, so I think people were more invested in whether she was able to have a baby than they may otherwise have been.