About this item
Thirteen-year-old Quest (Q) isnt sure hes ready for a new family. For a long time its just been him and his mom, Blaze. But everything changes when Blaze falls in love with Roger and they start a new rock band called Match. Now theyre married, have a hit record, and Match is going out on a year-long driving tour across the country. Q, along with new stepsister Angela, will take a year off from school and travel with the band. For now, home will be a luxury motor coach and homework will be a Web site diary of their travels. Perfect-Q can practice his magic tricks and Angela can read her spy novels. What can go wrong? As Q and Angela settle into their new life and new relationship as siblings, they start to notice that certain coincidences dont seem coincidental. For example, how does a band roadie named Boone find them in the middle of a desert where their coach just happens to break down? Why does a man from their parents wedding keep showing up in the same cities they stop at? When they reach Philadelphia, Q and Angela realize this tour is definitely not the trip their parents had planned and that the "City of Brotherly Love" is full of mysteries and secrets that could threaten their new life together. In addition to his action adventure books, Roland is the author of many award-winning books for children including Journey of the Red Wolf; The Captains Dog: My Journey with the Lewis and Clark Tribe; and Thunder Cave, which was a 1996 Notable Childrens Trade Book in the field of Social Studies. His books with Sleeping Bear Press include W is for Waves: An Ocean Alphabet; Z is for Zookeeper: A Zoo Alphabet; and N is for our Nations Capital: A Washington, DC Alphabet. Roland lives near Portland, Oregon.
About the Author
Roland Smith is an American author of young adult fiction as well as nonfiction books for children. Smith was born in Portland, Oregon, and graduated from Portland State University and, following a part-time job at the Oregon Zoo in Portland, began a 20-year career as a zookeeper, both at the Oregon Zoo and the Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma, Washington. After working to save wildlife following the Exxon Valdez oil spill, in 1990, he published his first book, , a non-fiction account of the process of animal rescue. Smith continued to draw upon his zoo experiences for other non-fiction titles, including , which won an Oregon Book Award in 1996. In 1997, Smith published his first novel, . The book continues Smith's theme, as teenage protagonist Jacob Lansa follows his biologist father to Africa where the father is researching elephants. The Lansa character also appears in 1999s and 2001's . Other novels by Smith include , about a boy who searches for Bigfoot. , the story of a teenage boy obsessed with climbing mountains, and . In 2008, Smith published the first book in the series titled . Smith's books have won "Book of the Year" awards in Colorado, Nevada, South Carolina, and Florida, as well as in his native Oregon. Smith lives in Tualatin, Oregon with his wife and stepchildren.
