About the author

Alexandrea LeChelle is a Black contemporary romance author whose stories explore love, grief, healing, and the complicated beauty of human connection. Her novels unfold between Texas and Louisiana, centering Black characters navigating family legacies, emotional vulnerability, second chances, and the courage it takes to love deeply and unabashedly.

Through rich storytelling and cinematic detail, Alexandrea writes the kind of love stories she longed to see growing up–stories where Black people are allowed to be soft, flawed, ambitious, passionate, but most of all, human.

With writing, she has one belief:

Love, in all its forms, has the power to change us for the better.

Sweet Freckled Olives was born from the women who shaped me. Olive was my mother’s favorite color. Sweet Freckles was the name my grandmother professed was her nickname. This space is my love letter to both of them. They carried burdens, responsibilities, and sacrifices that often left little room for softness. The life I am building is my thank you.

Olives are naturally bitter. Life can make us bitter too.

But sweetness has a way of transforming things.

Sweet Freckled Olives exists for women learning to find sweetness again, even within lives freckled by grief, mistakes, and second chances.

Because I believe women are allowed to do what they want (legally, of course), I decided, “Why not make my own magazine?” Sweet Freckled Olives is equal parts publishing house, creative studio, lifestyle magazine, and digital garden.

Around here you’ll find:

• Books + Storytelling - behind the scenes looks at writing, publishing, character creation, and the worlds behind my stories

• Healing + Growth - reflections on my own mental health, self-love, and rebuilding after difficult seasons

• Creative Living - writing routines, productivity systems, journaling, playlists, and life as a multi-passionate creative

• Main Character Moments - dating myself, trying new things, documenting adventures, and creating a life I enjoy

• Culture Club - books, music, recipes, films, and all the things currently inspiring me

• The Olive Grove - the exclusive community for readers who want to get inside scoop on my the stories before they reach the bookshelf

• I build playlists before I build stories.

• Most of my stories being with a song I most likely listened to on repeat for days.

• Houston and places in Louisiana will almost always show up in everything I write.

• My special interests are notebooks and “fine” fountain pens.

• Bookstores and Coffee Shops are my version of retail therapy.

• I quite literally have a file cabinet in my brain (okay…maybe figuratively) filled with names, story ideas, and random dialogue that’ll one day make it to the page.

• Food plays a starring role in many of my stories because meals are one of my favorite ways to show love to people.

• If I’m writing a story, there’s sure to be complicated family dynamics, a parent we love to hate, tears, and a hard-earned happy ending.

• I’m currently in a Beverly Jenkins chokehold right now.

Speed Round:

• Coffee or Tea: Coffee…Brown Sugar Blonde Espresso

• Morning or Night: All Night Loooonnnnngggg… I’m one with the Moon lbs

• Paper or Digital Planner: Give me the paper…You can pry my bullet journal from my cold, dead hands

• Favorite Place to Write: anyplace with access to good music

• Favorite Romance Trope: I’m ashamed to say I love a pop-up baby

• Favorite Authors: Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston, Beverly Jenkins, Jahquel J. Endiya Carter, Kennedy Ryan, Christina C. Jones

• Reading: Night Hawk by Beverly Jenkins

• Listening: Anita Baker on repeat

• Writing: Lady In My Life

• Watching: P-Valley…research purposes

• Learning: conducting a deep dive into secondary math vertical alignment to increase math scores next school year