Bray was born in Southport to a strict Mormon family. She spent her teen years in Exeter; her father was a local stake president in Devon and Cornwall.
Bray graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in English literature from Open University in 2008 and subsequently completed a Master of Arts (MA) at Edge Hill University in 2010 followed by a PhD.
A lapsed Mormon, her debut novel A Song for Issy Bradley (2014) follows a Mormon family undergoing a crisis of faith.
Her second novel, The Museum of You, was published in 2016.
According to The Bookseller, she earned a “strong five figure” advance in 2019 for a novel about climate change, entitled When the Lights Go Out. The book was published in 2020
