Legal Name: Alyssandra Katherine Blackwood

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28 years old at the beginning of Book 1 [A Drop of Magic]. 5'8” tall, she has long, wavy, auburn hair that she often wears up in a ponytail to keep it out of her face. She has grey-blue eyes, pale skin with a smooth complexion and a scattering of freckles. She is fit/muscular, from her work as a sculptor as well as Yoga and Aikido (and in later books, training with a sword). After the events of Book 1, Alex has multiple pale scars on her left arm from elbow to wrist and an intricate tattoo that spirals up her right arm from wrist to shoulder. She values comfort over style and has a general "girl next door" look. Her preferred outfit is a T-shirt, hoodie, jeans, and hiking boots. She doesn't often wear makeup, but she does put it on for special occasions. Because of her work in her art studio, she often has smudges of soot on her face and/or metal dust on her clothes.

Alex is no stranger to loss. Her father never came home from the Faerie Wars, and her mother died in a car crash when Alex was 17. As a result, she walls herself off to protect herself from pain. Alex approaches most situations with a mix of practicality and cynicism. She prefers anger to fear, and often lashes out when she finds herself in uncomfortable situations. She retreats to her art studio when she’s feeling stressed because working on her art tends to calm her and help her think, though that sometimes backfires. While Alex is afraid of commitment and has serious abandonment issues, deep down she longs for the kind of stability and connection she never had at home. She’s slow to open up to people, but once she decides to trust someone, she’s generous, fiercly loyal, and will do whatever it takes to protect the people she cares about. Sarcastic, resilliant, and with a slight martyr complex, Alex has to overcome her self-doubt and ignorance in order to realize her full potential. The first step to changing the world is changing her own perceptions.

Alex was ten years old when the fae came out of hiding, at which time her mother and father fought constantly over their views of magic and whether or not the fae should be allowed to live alongside humans. Her father left, determined to fight against the acceptance of magic. Alex waited years for him to return, but he never did. Once the Faerie Wars officially began, a man named Sol came and introduced himself as her father’s commanding officer. Her father had become a soldier. Later, Sol told them Alex’s father had died in combat, though no body was recovered. Sol continued to check in on Alex and her mother periodically, despite her mother moving them all over the country, and when Alex’s mother died in a car accident when Alex was seventeen, Sol became her legal guardian. Alex has a hard time trusting relationships, convinced that anyone she grows close to will inevitably be torn away.

Eventually, the humans and fae signed a peace treaty, ending the war, but Alex wasn’t sure how she felt about living side-by-side with fae. She hated the fae for being the reason her father left, and she hated her father for caring more about destroying magic than being with his family. With both her father and mother dead, Alex chose to ignore the issue, unable to choose a side in the argument that had driven her parents apart. Determined to ignore all things magic, she stuck her head in the sand and went to college, where she studied art and became a metalsmith. While at college, despite her best efforts to remain isolated, she formed friendships with three people: David Nolan, Maggie Hawthorne, and Aiden Daye.

With some financial help from Sol, Alex moved into a remote mountain cabin outside of Nederland, Colorado, where she could make her art in seclusion and show it in the Souled Fine Art Gallery in nearby Boulder, Colorado, which was owned by an attractive, enigmatic man named James Abernathy. Alex also helped her friend Maggie open a bookstore called Magpie Books, where she worked part time as a clerk in order to make ends meet and not become a total shut-in, but she can be a bit flaky and doesn’t always show up for her shifts on time. The bookstore also allowed her the opportunity to host a local artist exhibit to help support fellow artists.

Alex finally allowed herself to become part of a community. She made new friends, like Emma who sold coffee in the bookstore and Sophie who went on artist retreats with her. She still had trouble dating and never managed to stay in a romantic relationship longer than a month, much to Maggie’s annoyance since she kept setting Alex up on blind dates, but Alex didn’t mind being single. She had dinner every Tuesday with James to talk about art, and watched movies on Saturdays with David and Aiden. She even pseudo-adopted a stray cat that hung out on her property.

Life seemed to be going well until the day the police informed her that her good friend Aiden had been murdered. Suddenly, all the abandonment issues Alex had from her earlier life came crashing back, compounded by guilt that Aiden had called her the night he died and she hadn’t answered, forcing him to leave a cryptic message on her phone. That guilt, and the idea that she should have done more to protect her friend, drives her to collect and defend social misfits moving forward.