Welcome friend! Welcome, friend!
One of the joys of book blogging is getting the opportunity to peek behind the curtain and learn more about the people who create the stories we enjoy. Today, I’m excited to welcome L. M. Kemp to Armed with A Book to discuss her novel I, Spy.
Whether I’m reading a mystery, fantasy, or adventure story, I’m always curious about the choices authors make: where ideas come from, how characters evolve, and what keeps a writer excited about a project from beginning to end. In our conversation, L. M. Kemp shares insights into her writing process, her characters, and the story behind I, Spy. We are both moms to curious girls and I had a blast relating to her as a writer and parent.
Let’s dive in!
I, Spy
Ex-spy Kendal was one of the best, but now she’s wearing the toughest disguise of her career: Mom.
Kendal Carter is out in the cold and she wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s been four years since her daughter Rosie was born and Kendal has kept her miles away from The Game. But when their hiding place is discovered and danger comes too close, Ken is forced to turn to old contacts. Her longtime friend and ex-handler Rico doesn’t miss his chance to pull his best player back in. Whisking them to London, Rico offers them a luxury safe house in an area with good schools. How can she resist?
But there’s a catch, of course. Rico wants Kendal to come back to work for his espionage agency Bon Temps. He’s offering a cushy assignment with no apparent downside, running a rookie asset in one of London’s biggest, murkiest tech firms. It should be easy enough for someone with her experience, and luckily, mother is the perfect cover.
However, it doesn’t take long for Kendal to realize that Rico’s got an agenda of his own. The tech firm has hands in Rosie’s school, and the world of PTAs and playdates comes with its own web of allegiances and betrayals. Kendal soon finds herself in way too deep . . .
I, Spy is a propulsive debut thriller about the disguise that all parents wear, and the former lives that come back to haunt us.
Get to know the author: L. M. Kemp
Hi L. M.! Welcome to Armed with A Book. It is a pleasure to chat with you. Please tell me and my readers a bit about yourself.
Hi! Thank you so much for the opportunity to meet you and discover your world, it’s a treat. I’m Lauren Kemp, but my friends do genuinely call me LM. I was hoping using the initials on my book cover would make me seem mysterious, but now I worry they just make me seem snooty. I’m from the UK, a life-long North Londoner (home to many spies). I, SPY is about an ex-spy who retired when she found out she was pregnant. Now her daughter is four and she’s pulled back in for one more job. The research and writing of this series is the most fun I’ve ever had (professionally).
In your note to the reader, you describe motherhood as a shift that changed not just your life, but your ideas and fears. How did that transformation shape Kendal as a character?
Not to go too dark from the get-go, so let me lead with this; my kid is alive and well. But! When she was a newborn there were some complications and a paediatric neurologist told me she would probably die (I appreciate that that’s very dark from the get-go). For the first three months of being new parents, we lived under this horrifying cloud. Let me tell you Kriti, once you have experienced that kind of fear, everything else seems easy.
I wanted to write about the fear inherent in motherhood, but also the power that comes with that fear. But I didn’t want to talk about the diabolical real-life events, they were too grim and not universal. Instead, I used the experience to craft a character who already possessed real power and then became undone by that natural fear I think most mothers experience (but without the paediatric neurology because that’s not a cool story with guns).
Kendal is highly observant and always assessing her environment. How did you build that mindset into the narrative voice?
In an early draft a reader said, “you can’t just say ‘checks the exits’ to show us spy craft” (thanks Millie). A real spy I met during my research talked about ‘baseline normal’ as something anyone in the field would be aware of, so I used those markers to show Kendal’s personality. It’s also a useful way to build tension because the reader will also share her understanding of the baseline.
The stakes in I, Spy are both global (espionage) and deeply personal (Rosie’s safety). How did you think about balancing those two layers?
I was once at a lecture by an artist and teacher called James Victore who was talking about what makes great art. The quote that stayed with me forever more was ‘in the detail, is the universal.’ I think when you’re a parent, global and personal become entwined in a new way.
The novel uses short chapters that create a sense of forward motion—what drew you to that structure?
Honestly my need to get to the next thing asap. Case in point….
Was there a specific moment in your own experience of motherhood that directly found its way into I, Spy?
The playground politics are ripped from reality. We used to live in Hampstead, and the schoolyard was full of spy moms and a lot of that painful small talk and discomfort became material.
What was the most surprising or unsettling thing you discovered diving into the “murky world of modern spy craft”?
Two things surprised me; one is that in certain scenarios, it’s incredibly boring, and the other is that the wildest things you can possibly imagine are absolutely feasible.
Different readers connect to stories in different ways—especially around emotional intensity. How do you think about writing scenes that may resonate very differently depending on a reader’s own life experiences?
Oh, this is such a great question. I’ve seen an early reviewer say they didn’t enjoy how the characters spoke about parenting (four stars, thanks Janet). I think the best you can do is be curious, provide honesty and create a scene that is true to your character. But for a more elegant response, please may I quote Ursula K Le Guin?
“As you read a book word by word and page by page, you participate in its creation, just as a cellist playing a Bach suite participates, note by note, in the creation, the coming-to-be, the existence, of the music. And, as you read and re-read, the book of course participates in the creation of you, your thoughts and feelings, the size and temper of your soul.”
Ursula K Le Guin
You’ve worked across such a wide range of creative spaces—from personalized books to environmental reports. How have these experiences shaped your fiction writing?
Ultimately every project, every paragraph, every draft is practice. Being a practicing writer and working across formats means I have learnt how to use language to convey personality. It’s why I love writing dialogue, because within a page you can write a conversation between two completely different people, and select the words that person would use. Writing Kendal and her mother is such a good example. I hope that you could remove every dialogue tag on the page, and you would still know who was talking.
Now for some fun spy-themed questions! If you had to choose, would you rather be an undercover operative or a handler behind the scenes? Why?
I wish I had the prowess or performance necessary to be undercover, but I am a horrible liar so I’d have to say handling would be safest for everyone.
If you had to create a spy alias for yourself, what would your name and cover story be?
Hilary Hazard, San Francisco-born social media manager and agent of chaos.
Your note to the reader stayed with me long after I closed the book. It made me reflect on how motherhood has shifted my own sense of self—and brought me closer to writing in ways I didn’t expect. How has that journey looked for you?
After my daughter was born, it took me seven years to claw back a sense of self that looked familiar, from the shell of a person I became in those dark early days. The shift from party person, freelancer and general fool-arounder was intense, but my identity as a writer never changed. I think having a vocation is a superpower, something that calls you back when you’re lost and that changes with you. The way I write, the things I write about and my ability in general have all matured with me. It’s a way to make sense of life and a way to talk about the detail and the universal.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
I’m so grateful that the experience of being a parent, as well as the amazing nonsense my daughter comes up with, have an outlet in what I really hope is a book that makes other mothers feel seen, and entertained. I hope I have created something that provides an escape and reprieve from the hard parts of motherhood, as well as expressing the profound strength and resilience that mothers have.
Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me!
Thank you for joining us, dear reader! L. M. and her journey in continuing to write while parenting is an inspiration to me. It gives me hope that these period of unsettling that I feel will eventually be over and I would have found a new way of embracing writing and reading. I am realizing that the person I was at twenty-five, thirty, forty, or fifty may not look the same—and that writing and reading are the vocations for me that I will always return to. They help me recognize myself across all those versions.
Add this book on Goodreads. I, Spy is now available wherever books are sold! Be sure to check your local library too.
Many thanks to the publisher for the review copy and Hector D. for the interview opportunity! Stay tuned for my thoughts! 🙂
Books come out every month. If you are curious about new releases that published alongside I, Spy, check out this post.
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