Forum: Story Recommendations

Hi.
Something I dislike in romance stories and books is how the story usually end when the protagonist and the love interest finally can start a family. I don't know how many stories I've read that ends with the protagonist getting married, or having children in the epilogue.

I mean, I see how it makes sense. The hurdles and drama for the couple have been overcome and they can now be together. As there are no more obstacles and conflicts to write about, let's end the story here. I get it. However, as someone who loves romance and family but hates drama, I'd rather have the romance be a happy thing, and the conflicts and "meat of the story" be from something else. I'm reading LA Fun by Dual Writer right now and am almost caught up. While some things in the story are really stupid, I really enjoy how they quickly became a family, and there wasn't a bunch of bullshit and drama getting inbetween. Marriage fairly early in the story, and I doubt it will end when the children arrive, having read Florida Friends. I saved a quote when I was reading My Little Ventrue, because Novus Animus pretty much put my thoughts about romance books into words:

"Well, you can do the same thing with romance. Page one, introduce your two characters destined to be together. Page two through five hundred, have them be drawn to each other with attraction, desire, emotion, and have the writer throw every possible hurdle you can think of to make it so their relationship seems doomed and impossible. Have them get together in the end. Bam, you have the same idiotic, indulgent crap as a movie that's nothing but explosions, just of the romance flavor instead of action flavor."

Anyhow, if you want a TL;DR, I'd like to read something that has a happy family life romance running in the background (not an innuendo for incest). Not something angsty and dramatic, like say A Well-Lived Life. More like A New Past (I think? I stopped reading somewhere in the middle waiting for it to finish, and haven't picked it up again yet. But I think that he was married and had a kid), or A Fresh Start maybe, though not a big fan of politics.

I remember, back in the mists of time, an author lobbying for a "wedded lust" tag for ASSD/ASSM.

Uther Pendragon.

Dance of a lifetime, they are wedded somewhere in the last quater but the ending point is more set with their athletic careers as a "goal" not the romantic part of the story.

You should pick up A New Past, its a great story and worth a read.

Also, Living next door to heaven is quite good, even if a little sad at times.

If you don't mind large age differences, the Community stories by oister50 or what's his name, starting with Cindy. I read some of them, but at some point it became just a little too much for me, when adult, intelligent characters lost all mental faculties because it was a necessity to advance the plot. Meh.

I think part of the problem with what you are looking for is scope, as I thought about what to recommend, most fictions want to focus on a single charactrr or a pair, maybe a small group. If you add children and want them to become indepemdent character in their own right, not just messy poop-factories, you add another book or two to sometimes quite expansive stories.

Try Russian novels, they have hundreds of characters.

You might like Blue eyes crying by DG Hear