Samantha Shannon is the New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author, born in London in 1991. She studied English Language and Literature at St Anne's College, Oxford, from 2010 to 2013, specialising in the poetry of Emily Dickinson and Principles of Film Criticism.

In 2013, at the age of 21, she published The Bone Season, the internationally bestselling first installment in a seven-book series of fantasy novels. Her first book outside the series, The Priory of the Orange Tree, was a finalist in the Lambda Literary Awards 2020. Its prequel, A Day of Fallen Night, was an instant #1 Sunday Times bestseller.

She is currently working on The Dark Mirror, the fifth book in the Bone Season series.