Vicky and Dante have known each other for years.  Dante is Evan, Vicky's brother's, best friend. They first met a bit before Vicky was to be married and there were sparks then.  Evan didn't want that event ruined, so she was warned to stay away as well as Dante.

Now, it's five years later and Vicky is divorced for a year and trying to move on with her life-but not having a lot of luck doing it.  Her best friend thinks she needs to have a night of unbridled sex to get the ball rolling.  She runs into Dante at a party she was waitressing at. The sparks are there again, but Vicky remembers Evan's warning.  After a series of mistakes, Vicky ends up in Dante's bed instead of the intended target. Quite a melee ensues, but Dante vows everything will be alright as long as she dates him for a couple of weeks....

I really enjoyed Blackmailed by the Hero! Dante really isn't anywhere close to a dark and dangerous type man who would blackmail someone-but you gotta do what you gotta do!! He saw a chance with Vicky and took it. He really was very nice and sweet and ripped and Oh you get the picture-the perfect man. At least for Vicky he seems to be. She just needed to get past some impressions she had of him and the warning from her brother. Dante does a good job of showing her who he really is-not what the tabloids say about him. Vicky was a goner!

Julie Particka wrote a quick, flirty, and very sexy read! I loved the banter! The story flows nicely and I wanted them to get their HEA!  I wasn't disappointed!

reviewed by Deb

Blackmailed by the Hero is a short, not particularly interesting, read. Vicky Stone is in post divorce mode, trying to get her life together without a handout from her famous actor brother. She's low on the totem pole at an events planning company when she runs into her brother's friend, Dante "Inferno" Palladino, one time professional wrestler, now an actor, at a Hollywood party she's working at. When she ends up in his bed, stroking his er manhood, instead of in Reed's bed, the actor who had given her instructions on how to get to his room, she freaks out. Dante and Vicky had always had serious chemistry, but she had been about to get married, so her brother warned her off him. She knows ending up in Dante's bed can be bad for her, for her career, so she tries to walk away gracefully, but Dante has other ideas in mind. When he blackmails her into helping him plan a party for himself and Evan (Vicky's brother), she just knows she can't let herself lean on him, that she needs to do things on her own, or she'll end up letting yet another man give her a handout, bail her out of the mess she's gotten herself into.

I like Dante, it's obvious from the very beginning, the blackmail notwithstanding, that he's a great guy with a big heart. I don't like Vicky as much, she comes across as really strident, when all Dante had been trying to do is help her. I respect that she was trying to be independent, but she took it too far and just ended up looking ridiculously bitchy. Their connection is sweet, but it isn't very deep. Probably because Vicky kept Dante at arm's length the entire book, even when they were having sex. She never opened herself up, even after Dante shared really personal things with her. So, their chemistry was lacking and it cast a sort of muted pall over the book.

Not much really stood out about Blackmailed by the Hero. Dante is a good guy, but he doesn't have that alpha-ness to him that would make him memorable, and Vicky just seems like a caricature of a modern divorcée with no especially interesting traits. Even the "villain" of the story is kinda one note, boring and he doesn't even get his comeuppance. I think the only character I really liked is Jade, Vicky's best friend. Now, she would make for an interesting story. Blackmailed by the Hero isn't bad, it just isn't great or that memorable, so I couldn't justify giving it more than 3 stars.