3.5 stars. I'm giving the extra half star for Rio. I kind of like that guy. His name bugged me all the way up until this book (for some reason I couldn't stop picturing a man dressed for Carnival) until I found out that it was short for a name which was harder to pronounce. Okay, I get it now. Kinda. 
 I didn't think I'd be coming back to this series until I realized that I was having trouble attaching to anything after finishing a BDB series re-read. While the Breed aren't exactly the wit-laced bunch that the brothers are (this is the poor man's substitute for the bold personalities and crazy adventures of the BDB vamp world), the background and setup is so similar that I've found myself able to keep pace with these books (after a quick skim re-read of books 1 through 3) while I continue to wait for another series to grab me. 
 I do wish that Rio's book had been pushed back further in the series. The readers should have gotten more time to see Rio sink further into despair before love pulled him back from the brink. His time of "in-between" was extremely short. He could have thrown himself back into work and sworn off love forever, becoming the hard-edged warrior that no one wanted to mess with (since Tegan got bumped from that role early enough). 
 The Good News about Midnight Breed : The strength in the series lies with the fantasy idea of being the unknowing woman who gets to fall magically into a (dark) fairy tale seemingly overnight. One day you're a boring administrative assistant (no, not really...I just made that up)...the next - *BOOM!* - you're the much desired breedmate of one of the hottest, strongest, most protective men on the planet. And you have powers...that might be good. It's a crapshoot. Either way - hot damn you've just won the lottery! 
 The Bad News about Midnight Breed : If you're looking for character history, extensive and/or amusing main character interaction (outside of the couple), intriguing plot outside of the romance, etc. etc. etc. you will be out of luck. Outside of fighting together, these men don't have much screen time to hang out. I miss that much from BDB. I'm assuming that the new characters who were brought in to fight will be future love interests, but it's hard to get excited about upcoming books when I feel like the characters who are left are virtual strangers. We've gotten small glimpses of Niko, but not enough to keep me excited, and I'm already 25% into his book. What's going to happen when I get to the new kids? The only person left who I'm somewhat curious about is Chase...and maybe I might have a small interest in Reichen. 
 Time will tell if the series picks up or slows down. If it picks up, I'll keep my ticket on the train. If not, I'll be getting off at the next station.