Morsels: Tales of Love and Passion by Sera Maddox Drake is a work of anthology-style short stories in various romantic subgenres. There are interesting twists when a woman impersonates a goddess and gets caught in the act or when a painter brings her art to life at a steep price, for example. Two lovers also turn a flower arrangement into something far more sensual in surprising ways. Morsels is a collection of bite-sized, tantalizing tales that explore the many shades of love, passion, and seduction. Whether sweet, savory, or fiery, these stories promise to delight, surprise, and stir the senses.

Author Sera Maddox Drake offers a no-holds-barred variety of romances in this taster of what she can do as an author, and it makes for a truly decadent collection of short stories where each one is more enticing than the last. I loved the very visual and physical sense to her writing so that every moment is easily imagined, with a rich, evocative, and utterly captivating style that feels confidently penned and always ensures you’re in safe hands. As a taste of what this author can achieve, it’s a fantastic 'amuse-bouche' of passion, mystery, and desire that really whets the appetite to read much longer, more involved romances from Drake in the future. Yet these short pieces never felt incomplete or too short either, as they have their own perfectly formed sensual, imaginative, and wildly original moments. Overall, I highly recommend Morsels: Tales of Love and Passion to any reader seeking bold, romantic storytelling at its best.

Morsels: Tales of Love and Passion by Sera Maddox Drake is a collection of stories from the world of BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadism, masochism). In the book, she also introduces herself as a writer and presents some excerpts from her first novel, Ancilla. In the introduction to the anthology, she describes her stories as eros-themed, several of which she terms blatantly erotic. She defines Eros as another word for love—passionate love, romantic love, and desire—and says that love is the subject of this book. She goes on to delineate the themes of each story and excerpt. The stories are titled A Tale as Old as Time, A Rose by Any Other Name, The Alpaca Yarn Incident, One of the Girls, Diving into the Wreck, Anything for a Friend, and Parliament of Rooks. The two chapters from her novel, she says, are to whet our appetite for her book. She warns us that several of the pieces are neither light-hearted nor comfortable.

Knowing almost nothing about the details of BDSM culture, I opened this book out of curiosity. I was somewhat shocked not only by the extent of intellectualism, terminology, and background related to this sexual preference (or obsession), but I was also impressed by Ms. Drake’s historical and literary knowledge of this world. Though the topics of her stories are not for everyone, her writing skill is impressive, especially in creating character and imagery. Her literary knowledge is extensive as she delves into source inspiration from Chaucer, Emily Dickenson, and the Bronte sisters, to name a few. She often writes from a first-person perspective, which brings us close to the narrative. Her novel excerpts present the protagonist as being introduced into this passionate and sometimes disturbing world. I highly recommend Morsels by Sera Maddox Drake for anyone involved in this culture and for anyone intellectually curious about it.

Morsels by Sera Maddox Drake is a series of micro-stories that take the reader right to the heart of each story, letting them see the heat between the main characters at the point where it’s burning the most. Even more, some of them feature characters that are well known in literature. Beauty and her Beast, Venus, and Chaucer. Each story takes the reader deeper and perhaps darker into a world of passion, sex, and plenty of BDSM. Each story also looks at different types of relationships, characters, and different periods, and the result is a book that the reader can’t turn away from. Driving into the Wreck and the chapters from Ancilla (a shorter excerpt from a longer book) are especially well-written and intriguing, with characters that draw the reader in and plenty of spicy content to whet the appetite for more.

The plot of each of the stories in Morsels: Tales of Love and Passion by Sera Maddox Drake is similar in that they’re all about sex and passion, but they’re each different as they explore characters who are in committed relationships, just meeting, fulfilling last wishes, living out a fantasy, and so much more. The pace of each is fast, which is essential in micro fiction. The stories don’t have a lot of build-up, but for those who want to enjoy the action, that’s a good thing. The reader is introduced to a slew of different characters throughout the stories, though most feature two characters and focus solely on their relationship to each other (whatever that relationship may be).

Are you a fan of erotic romance? If yes, grab a copy of Morsels -- a collection of sizzling romance and erotic short stories by Sera Maddox Drake. Despite their roles as hostage and captor, Beauty and the Beast develop genuine feelings for each other in a secluded castle. Two women push the boundaries of their limits on their first dinner date. An exotic dancer incurs the wrath of a goddess after using her name and girdle to enhance her prospects. An artist falls in love with one of her own works, and her life starts to spiral out of control. A BDSM relationship in its death throes survives yet another Valentine's Day. A man organizes one last extreme BDSM session for his lover, who is dying of cancer.

Sera Maddox Drake presents a captivating collection of short stories full of eroticism and romance. Apart from these flash fiction tales, Morsels also features two chapters from Drake's erotic drama, Ancilla. The narratives are thoroughly engrossing and immersive, with a couple of the stories delving into magical realism. The characters and relationship dynamics are complex and layered. Drake masterfully pulls the reader into the lives of these characters, who come from diverse backgrounds and have to navigate their own unique issues in their relationships. I enjoyed every single story in this collection, but "The Muse" was my favorite of the bunch. The author describes intimate relationships in a way that the reader can relate to, notwithstanding the extraordinary situations the characters find themselves in. Overall, it's a fantastic collection of short stories that I highly recommend to readers of erotic romance!