The daughter of John Kempe, Bray was born in St Mary Newington, Surrey. She was married first to Charles Alfred Stothard. Following his death, Bray married Rev. Edward Atkyns Bray. In 1823 she produced a memoir of her first husband and completed the book he had left unfinished upon this death.
After marrying her second husband, she began writing historical novels, of which her most popular revived the principal families of the counties of Devon and Cornwall, such as the Trelawneys of Trelawne, the Pomeroys, and the Courtenays of Walreddon. Also connected with South-West England are an 1854 series of tales on the romantic legends connected with Dartmoor and North Cornwall, A Peep at the Pixies, or Legends of the West. She died in London. The Hypatia Collection holds complete set of her novels.