Kellan often times has one thing on his mind in the mornings, and his woman often times has to tell him no, "he gave a growl of appreciation and pulled her against him. Or at least he tried, until she went stiff with resistance and shook him again. “No, we don’t have time for that,” she said impatiently. “Wake up. I need to show you something.” Kellan loved to tease his woman, “are you flirting with me, baby? Because if so, I like it.” I liked this book, I loved Kellan.

Secrets sometimes need to be told. The question is which ones and who do you tell? Sabrina and Kellan have been keeping secrets thinking that they were keeping the other safe by doing so. Hind sight is 20/20. I really enjoyed, Total Control.

Kellan and Sabrina grew up together and are now part of the 11th Hour Squad, a type of Black OPS group. This time the person they ordered to investigate is Kellan's father. Kellan knows he's innocent and is determined to prove it but Sabrina isn't so sure. Sabrina's unrequited love for Kellan makes her hope she's wrong but she knows his family better than he does. Lots of action, suspense and romance make this a great read.

Sabrina is very smart and works for the 11th Hour company as a computer specialist. Kellan is former Marine and Army, from a wealthy family and took Sabrina in when her father left her at ten years old. She has been in love with Kellan for as long as she’s known him. Kellan’s father is suspected of selling arms to cartels. Kellan doesn’t believe it, so he and Sabrina go undercover as a couple to find the information that will prove he’s guilty or find nothing just like Kellan thinks. While at his childhood home secrets are revealed and he finds out everything Sabrina has been keeping from him. They’ve always been best friends but when they become lovers, Sabrina gets scared and tries to push Kellan away. Kellan has to choose the woman he’s fallen for or the man who was his hero.
A sexy, suspenseful story with friends to lovers. Secrets and a woman who’s learned to keep everyone’s secrets. The only thing that bothered me was when she finally gets what she’s always wanted, she doesn’t think she’s good enough for him.
* Voluntarily read and reviewed this for Netgalley *

I thoroughly enjoyed this book - especially Sabrina's character. She's the classic best friend that's been in love with her friend (Kellan) for years, however there are a number of twists to her story that made her an interesting character. That they both work together at 11th Hour makes their pairing more challenging and quickly shows them their relative value to the organization. To me, Kellan wasn't as likable a character as Sabrina was. While I wanted them to get their HEA, Kellan seemed a bit too focused on himself to me - to the point of vacillating between hero and martyr.

I loved that we finally get to meet the illusive Mr. Knight in this book. He's an interesting character and the exact opposite of how I'd pictured him in my head, although the author's description works and makes more sense.

Fans of the genre will enjoy this book and want to put it at the top of their TBR list. I'd give this one 4.5 stars, but am rounding up. The author is on my must read authors' list.

‘Total Control’ started out fantastically, I have to say. The conflict was established early on, as Kellan Blake went all out to prove his father’s innocence when the 11th Hour crew had all but deemed his guilty of crimes too horrific to imagine. But it was the undercover mission involving him and fellow operative and best friend Sabrina however, that had things going completely awry for me, along with a set of revelations and corresponding behaviour that made me think twice about rooting for this pairing.

Combining the unrequited love, best friends-to-lovers trope here, Jackie Ashenden focuses less on the action and more on the drama surrounding both Kellan and Sabrina, though it’s the former’s intrusive past that has been brought to light in a very unpleasant way, overshadowing the original mission. And that was what spoiled the broth for me, so to speak. I wanted to see how Ashenden addressed his inability to see Sabrina for who she was given she was under his nose all these years, but this didn’t happen; instead, all I got was more of Kellan bulldozing his way through to proclaim Sabrina was what he wanted after 2 weeks undercover and several nights of hot sex.

In fact, I’d be hard-pressed to find a more emotionally-manipulative and controlling ‘hero’ than Kellan, who uses every weapon in his arsenal to get his way (that includes sex) to railroad his best friend under the guise of wanting to protect her. His inability to see her as an operative, his unquestioning acceptance of the his sudden but inexplicable attraction to her despite the fixation on anything and everything else but her didn’t make him a protagonist deserving of a woman who was insecure enough in measuring her self-worth in terms of usefulness to him and whose only crime was to stupidly let herself be controlled by him.

The constant repetition of what Kellan did years ago grated on me—a character who made her presence felt without appearing nonetheless—made the story like a lopsided love triangle when that became the focus at the end instead of the mission that we started out with. The result was an ending scene that became an emotional mess and both Sabrina and Kellan tried different ways to rationalise what they’d done…until I failed to see any logic in their arguments.

In essence, the direction the story took was immensely disappointing, particularly after the pretty cool build-up from the start. And more’s the pity, because ‘Total Control’ could have gone down so differently for me but ultimately didn’t.