The All-Important HEA

Happily Ever After...love it or hate it, it's a traditional staple of the romance genre. Some review sites will not even read a book that lacks an HEA. To write a romance novel that doesn't end with the hero and heroine riding off into the sunset is considered blasphemy by some. (Technically, books without HEAs are love stories, not romances. But that's a can I don't plan on opening in this post.)

I have been writing nearly all my life. For as long as I can remember, I've told stories. Most of the ones I wrote before the age of 24 will never, ever see the light of day if I have anything to do with it, but I have kept most of them, for amusement, shame, or nostalgia I don't know. In my angst-filled, goth-influenced teenage years I never wrote happy endings. Ever. If anyone was left alive at the end of the story, they were mutilated or incarcerated.

In my early twenties, during which I suffered crippling depression, I didn't write HEAs either. I had started leaning towards romance and erotica then, but things never ended well between my hero and heroine. I believed that real life never ended happily, and so, my stories should not either.

I don't know exactly when I made the transition to being an HEA advocate, but I suppose it was after writing Svetkavista, which has a happy ending for the most part. I had invested so much sweat and tears into my characters that I had to leave them happy. I couldn't stand doing anything else. And from then on I've been an HEA queen. I don't even like reading other people's books if they don't have HEAs any more. To journey with these characters through all their pain and their shit only to walk away knowing they still suffer? Hard to take.

And so now I find myself faced with a dilemma. My current WIP is a piece for Tease's Tarot Series, based on The Empress card. Woman of the Forest is a retelling of the myth of Rhea Silvia, a Vestal Virgin who is seduced by Mars, god of war, and bears his sons. Those sons, Romulus and Remus, go on to become great warriors and, eventually, the founders of Rome. I am taking some minor creative liberties with the story, but I am, on the whole, staying true to the myth. My problem?

The myth doesn't exactly have a happy ending. Depending upon which version you subscribe to, the story is either bittersweet at its close, or downright tragic. And already I am having trouble swallowing that.

So, your thoughts? Is an HEA a must? What about a HFN ("happy for now")? Or a "happy, sorta"?