When Jennifer Holm started writing books she didn't expect to be writing "kid lit." But nine books and Newbery Honor, Parents Choice Silver and Publisher's Weekly Best Book -- and more -- awards later, she's found her niche.

"I didn't write my first novel as a children's book. I just wrote it," Jennifer says. But her agent thought it would be great for younger readers. Jennifer was surprised. "I thought it was too racy -- there's some violence and death in it." She realized a lot had changed in children's literature since she was a kid. "I was kind of behind the times."

It's probably true that you write the books you'd like to read. One day I started, just for fun, writing a book I had always wanted to read; a mystery novel as hard-boiled as I could make it, but with two significant restrictions: I wanted a woman in the lead role, and I wanted to make all the characters as real as I could, rather then rely on the conventions of noir, or the conventions of society at large (for example, the conventional wisdom that drug addicts are evil and heartless, that family is always kind and helpful, and so on). I loved old mystery novels and noir films (and still do), but as dark as some of them are, I felt like few were honest enough. Most seemed to stop short of some truth about the detective and his client, and I wanted to go beyond that point, to get at a deeper, more resonant place in the mystery. A further restriction I set for myself as I went along was that, aside from all my high-flying literary ideas, the book had to be an engaging mystery as well. I'd read plenty of "literary" mysteries that were neither.

Mystery writer Sparkle Hayter's favorite blogs:

Arts & Letters Daily. I learn the most interesting things here, and they have great newspaper links too

The Hotel Chelsea Blog. It's well-written and full of 20th century art history. I'd read it even if I hadn't lived there for a decade.

The Make Blog. How to make just about anything.

Ze's Blog. A great time waster, lots of links to Ze's creations, such a the classic "how to dance properly", as well as links to other excellent sites.

Don't forget: Send us your favorite blogs -- and tell us why you like 'em. Email us.

Let's get the first question out of the way: Yes, it's her real name.

Sparkle Hayter is a writer now finishing her sixth -- and final, she says -- installment of her popular "Robin Hudson" mystery novels. Originally from Canada, Sparkle now lives in Paris. She likes to write in cafes, just like Hemingway did. She also reported for the Toronto Star as a war correspondent. Just like Hemingway did. (She, in Afghanistan. He, of course, in Spain.) "People keep finding the parallels," she says. "But he was humorless and macho. That's a big difference."

Sparkle's latest novel is set in her new hometown. It's full of humor and Robin's cool not macho. Sparkle moved to Paris five years ago after living in New York City. It was more than just a change of scenery -- it changed the way she wrote. We caught up with her in Paris:

I grew up in Jersey City during the 1970s, a somewhat bizarre, often hyper-insightful world where, amidst the urban blight and screwed-up politics, people were judged not by what they did for a living, or what they did to the rest of the world, or even for their larger "reputations," but rather by how they treated you directly. And so it was not uncommon to hear bluntly, within the same sentence, of a "kind" and "gentle" hit man or a "rotten, selfish" priest.

Subscriber Saul Gliserman recommends "Blood Meridian" by Cormac McCarthy:

I would think that most subscribers to VT would enjoy Blood Meridian immensely because of McCarthy's use of the English language. The book reads as an admixture of the Old Testament, Homer, Shakespeare and Melville. Although there is much gory realism, it is by no means gratuitous, and it conveys, in a profoundly realistic fashion, what life was like in the "Old West" of the mid-nineteenth century. The book left me with the utmost respect for McCarthy's talent, and I would rank him among this country's finest writers of any era.