Alexa Donne

Alexa Donne reshapes classic plots as speculative romance and writes contemporary mysteries for younger readers. The Stars We Steal, published by HMH Books in 2020, reimagines Jane Austen’s Persuasion as a space opera. Princess Leonie Kolburg lives aboard a fading European spaceship and enters an elaborate matchmaking season because her royal family faces financial ruin, only to encounter the former fiancé she was pressured to abandon. The novel pairs social maneuvering and romantic history with questions about class, technology, and survival away from Earth. Donne’s debut, Brightly Burning, similarly moved a classic novel into space by drawing on Jane Eyre. She later shifted toward suspense with The Ivies, Pretty Dead Queens, and The Bitter End; Pretty Dead Queens became an Edgar Award finalist. Donne has also worked in television marketing and created educational material about writing and publishing, roles that complement her fiction’s alertness to audience expectations, genre structure, and public image.