She was born to a Portuguese mother and a Swedish father, and grew up in Helsingborg on the south coast of Sweden.

[1] In the early 90s Alexandra moved to Stockholm to pursue a career in acting before changing her focus to the art of writing.

[1] In 2003, she published her debut novel Stjärneborg (Stjerneborg) about the life of astronomer Tycho Brahe.

[2] Together with her husband Alexander Ahndoril, Alexandra writes under the pseudonym Lars Kepler,[3] author of the internationally bestselling Joona Linna series.

In addition to her work as an author, Alexandra has also been a literary critic for two of Sweden's largest newspapers, Göteborgs-Posten and Dagens Nyheter.