The Guilty Canvas by Daniel May (The Taste of Ink Part 2)

Title: ⟫ The Guilty Canvas (The Taste of Ink Part 2) 

  Author: ⟫ Daniel May 

Blurb: ⟫ “If he gives you everything you need, then why are you here?”   

Trinket has everything he wants, and it’s not enough.   Perfect boyfriend, architect Siebold AKA ‘Zee,’ adores him. Originally best friends, it took them a long time to confess their feelings, and Trinket should be elated to finally have what he always wanted.   

But the night of their confession went horribly wrong. Two years later, their relationship has yet to recover. Zee has the love, the money, the unending patience, but it isn’t enough. Trinket is still insecure in bed — even afraid. Despite his best efforts, Zee can do no right.   

Tattoo artist Mini can do no wrong. From the minute he and Trinket met — when Trinket tries in vain to mend his relationship with a two-year anniversary tattoo — no taboo has been off the table.   

Trinket didn’t mean to cheat.   

But he also doesn’t mean to stop, or to leave his boyfriend. For the first time in his life, he plans to get everything he needs… or lose it all trying.   

  The Guilty Canvas is the second book in the revised Taste of Ink trilogy. It was originally published as the fourth through sixth books (A Stanza on Skin, A Darker Palette, and The Color of Need). The books contain one continuous plot-line, share the same characters, and cannot be read as standalone.   

The trilogy is an extremely high heat, slow burn MMM with a happy ending. 

  Review: ⟫ I’ll admit, I half thought that as this was part two of the trilogy that it might be a kind of ‘holding’ book but I was completely and utterly wrong. With Zee away, Trinket goes to stay with Mini to fully experience what they can be together, even though he has absolutely no intentions of leaving Zee. 

 And oh boy, does Mini deliver on the new experiences. I absolutely loved how well Mini seemed to understand Trinket – how he reins him in whilst allowing him to learn more about himself and what he desires. I also really enjoyed the way in which Trinket began to come into his power – he was beginning to really get the effect he had on Mini as well as Zee – and appreciate that he wasn’t just a cipher, there for other people’s desires. Trinket is really coming into his own. 

 The situation with Zee – how Trinket is taking what he learns from Mini and incorporating it into his relationship with Zee – was fascinating, and we get more of an insight into their whole thing. There is more detail on how they got together, that infamous night, and just how much Zee is under Trinket’s spell. 

 Zee became more of a real person in this instalment, which was fascinating since the premise of the book was ostensibly to show Trinket and Mini having uninterrupted time together. 

 Again, this was an extremely hot read, with Mini teaching Trinket some of the intricacies of BDSM – heavy on the sane, safe and consensual. This felt much less like a car-crash waiting to happen and more like a window into people’s lives, and an absolutely fascinating view it was too. I don’t know just how this is going to turn into a HEA but I cannot wait to find out! 

 Another 5/5 from me – insightful, sexy, fascinating, well-written and absolutely intriguing story. 

 I received an ARC from GRR.