Time for another look at the books I've been reading lately. This covers the period from mid-June to this morning, when I finished the last book in bed. Prepare To Die! by Paul Tobin - It should come as no surprise that I have a fondness for reading novels set in original super-hero universes (they call it "Genre Kryptonite" over at Book Riot ). This is the story of Reaver, whose power is that he takes a year off of a person's life when he punches them. I don't think I've ever seen that as a power before, which I enjoyed. At the start of the book, Reaver is defeated by Octagon and a coalition of villains then is told to "prepare to die." He accepts but asks for two weeks to settle his affairs and is granted that respite. The novel is both his journey back home and a flashback to how he got to this point. It's an origin story and a love story and a story of what it actually means to be a hero. The character of Reaver has a tendency to reduce al...