Wily, charming Kuni Garu, a bandit, and stern, fearless Mata Zyndu, the son of a deposed duke, seem like polar opposites. Yet, in the uprising against the emperor, the two quickly become the best of friends after a series of adventures fighting against vast conscripted armies, silk-draped airships, and shapeshifting gods. Once the emperor has been overthrown, however, they each find themselves the leader of separate factions—two sides with very different ideas about how the world should be run and the meaning of justice.

A mother struggling to repress her violent past, A son struggling to grasp his violent future, A father blind to the danger that threatens them all. When the winds of war reach their peninsula, will the Matsuda family have the strength to defend their empire? Or will they tear each other apart before the true enemies even reach their shores? High on a mountainside at the edge of the Kaigenese Empire live the most powerful warriors in the world, superhumans capable of raising the sea and wielding blades of ice. For hundreds of years, the fighters of the Kusanagi Peninsula have held the Empire’s enemies at bay, earning their frozen spit of land the name ‘The Sword of Kaigen.’ Born into Kusanagi’s legendary Matsuda family, fourteen-year-old Mamoru has always known his purpose: to master his family’s fighting techniques and defend his homeland. But when an outsider arrives and pulls back the curtain on Kaigen’s alleged age of peace, Mamoru realizes that he might not have much time to become the fighter he was bred to be. Worse, the empire he was bred to defend may stand on a foundation of lies. Misaki told herself that she left the passions of her youth behind when she married into the Matsuda house. Determined to be a good housewife and mother, she hid away her sword, along with everything from her days as a fighter in a faraway country. But with her growing son asking questions about the outside world, the threat of an impending invasion looming across the sea, and her frigid husband grating on her nerves, Misaki finds the fighter in her clawing its way back to the surface.

Der Angriff der AfD auf unsere Demokratie begann nicht erst mit dem Potsdamer Geheimtreffen im November 2023, an dem hochrangige AfD-Politiker teilnahmen. Die Pläne zur Vertreibung von Millionen Menschen aus Deutschland markieren nun für jeden sichtbar den Rechtsextremismus in der AfD. CORRECTIV recherchiert seit 2016 zur AfD. Die Aufdeckung der Spendenaffäre begann in einem Essener Supermarkt-Café mit einem Gespräch mit dem bis dahin unbedeutenden Landtagskandidaten Guido Reil. Wir deckten illegale Parteispenden in Millionenhöhe auf. Wir deckten auf, wie die AfD aus der Schweiz über einen Tarnverein groß gemacht wurde. Und wir zeigten, wie die AfD zur Alternative für Russland wurde. Diese Abkehr aus der Westbindung hat Konsequenzen. Der Spitzenkandidat der AfD für die Europawahl, Maximilian Krah, fordert die Abkehr von den allgemeingültigen Menschenrechten. Ihr Mittel dabei ist die Desinformation. „Der AfD-Komplex“ bündelt die CORRECTIV-Recherchen der vergangenen acht Jahre. Unabhängiger Journalismus ist lebensnotwendig für eine Demokratie.

A gorgeous memoir about the sudden end to a seemingly happy marriage—an aching, love-filled, and transcendent account of surviving betrayal and discovering joyOn a chilly day in early spring, Belle Burden’s husband of twenty years announced, with no prior warning, that he was leaving her. Belle was shocked; he had always been a committed partner and a devoted father to their three children. She thought they were in love. She thought he—they—were living the life they'd always professional success, summers at their beloved beachside home, a vibrant social life. But overnight, her caring, steady husband became a man she hardly recognized. He exited his life with her like an actor shrugging off a costume.In Strangers, Belle revisits her marriage, searching for clues that her husband was not who she always thought he was. As she examines her relationship through a new lens, she reckons with her own family history and the lessons she intuited about how a woman is expected to behave in the face of betrayal. Through all of it, she is transformed. The discreet, compliant woman she once was—someone whose nickname was “Belle the Good”—gives way to someone braver, someone determined to use her voice.With unflinching honesty and profound grace, Burden charts a path through heartbreak to show the power of a woman who refuses to give up on love and rediscovers trust in herself. Strangers is a stunning, deeply moving, compulsively readable memoir heralding the arrival of a thrilling new literary talent.