Samantha Hunt was born in 1971 in Pound Ridge, New York. The Seas is her debut novel - it won the National Book Foundation's award for writers under 35 and was voted one of the Top 27 Books of 2004 by the Voice Literary Supplement. She is also the author of The Invention of Everything Else which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize 2009. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, McSweeney's, Esquire, A Public Space, Cabinet, Tin House, Seed Magazine, New York Magazine, Blind Spot, Harper's Bazaar, and The Believer. Her work has been translated into seven languages.Samantha Hunt teaches writing at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.

'Poetic and atmospheric' Sunday ExpressNat and Ruth are young orphans, living in a crowded foster home run by an eccentric religious fanatic. When a travelling conman comes knocking, they see their chance to escape and join him on the road, proclaiming they can channel the dead. Decades later, Cora is too clever for her office job, too scared of her abysmal lover to cope with her unplanned pregnancy, and she too is looking for a way out. So when her mute Aunt Ruth pays her an unexpected visit, she decides to join her on an unforgettable odyssey across the state of New York. Where is Ruth taking them? Where has she been? And who - or what - has she hidden in the woods at the end of the road?'Hunt mixes her gothic ingredients with great skill, and throws in some quirky contemporary twists for good measure. The result is a riveting, linguistically playful tale about demons, loss, magic and motherhood' Financial Times'Hunt's third novel heads into dark, brilliantly strange territory' Psychologies Magazine