Memories Lost, Power Found: Wicked Ink Signs Liesel von Stackelberg’s Debut “What We Left Behind”
Wicked Ink Publishing is beyond thrilled to welcome author Liesel von Stackelberg to our growing group of storytellers with her mesmerizing debut novel, What We Left Behind. A richly layered tale of memory, myth, and the shadows that bind us.
In the twisted heart of the Bazaar, a city coiled in ancient enchantments and riddled with half-truths, Rionach Prendergast wakes to a nightmare: her memories are gone, her name a hollow echo, and she is hunted by the Butcher. A cruel sorcerer whose magic warps the very fabric of reality. With shadow beasts at his command and a city trembling beneath his rule, Rionach must navigate a world of curses, blood rites, and treacherous alliances as she pieces together a past stolen from her.
Forced into hiding among a rebel coven of witches who practice forgotten magics whispered in lost tongues, Rionach’s journey spirals deeper into the Bazaar’s underbelly. There, darkness lives not only in alleyways and old gods, but within herself. As the truth of her power unfurls—entwined with the Butcher’s very rise. Rionach faces an impossible question: can she reclaim her identity without embracing the darkness it’s built upon?
What We Left Behind is a haunting, immersive dark sorcery fantasy steeped in folklore, betrayal, and the echoes of gods long gone. With lyrical prose, aching emotional depth, and a slow-burn unraveling of fate, von Stackelberg’s debut explores themes of identity, found family, memory, and the seductive pull of power, a story as intimate as it is epic.
Liesel von Stackelberg grew up in the quiet charm of Stony Plain, Alberta, where the seeds of her storytelling were first planted around bookshelves. Now based in Edmonton, she writes stories that blend emotional realism with sweeping fantastical worlds. Deeply influenced by global folklore, TTRPG campaigns, immersive video games, and the music that scores her imagination, Liesel crafts tales where the boundaries between hero and monster blur and no truth is without a shadow.
Wicked Ink is proud to champion her voice—bold, atmospheric, and unforgettable—and bring What We Left Behind into readers’ hands.
Get ready to enter the Bazaar, where memories are currency, monsters walk in daylight, and the past never stays buried.
To reclaim her memories, she must confront the monster she once knew.
In the shadow-soaked alleys of the Bazaar, a labyrinthine city steeped in ancient magic, whispered secrets, and deadly deceit. Young magician Rionach Prendergast awakens with her memories shattered and her past stolen by unseen hands. Haunted by visions she cannot place, she finds herself hunted by the tyrannical Butcher, a cruel master of dark sorcery who commands twisted creatures and shadowed forces that bend the very fabric of reality.
Desperate and vulnerable, Rionach is forced into an uneasy alliance with a secretive coven of rebel witches who wield forbidden magics born of old myths and blood rites. As she journeys deeper into the city’s underbelly, where curses linger like smoke and every shadow hides a lie, Rionach must unravel the mysteries of her unique power. A magic entwined with the very essence of the Butcher’s dark reign.
But reclaiming her memories comes at a price, for the truth reveals a bond more sinister than she dared imagine. In a world where gods and monsters once walked among mortals, and ancient bloodlines dictate fate, Rionach will learn that a fox may change its skin, but never its character. To survive the forces closing in, she must embrace the darkness within and face the legacy she tried to forget.
“What We Left Behind” is a gripping dark mythical fantasy of lost identities, forbidden magic, and the haunting shadows of a past that refuses to stay buried.
