I,Q Book 4: The Alamo is now available at your local bookseller and online! Fresh off a "too close" encounter with the terriorst group, the Ghost Cell, in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Q and Angela head to San Antonio, Texas. As their parents' band, Match, prepare for a concert at the Alamo, the two discover that the Ghost Cell has its tentacles everywhere, including the Lone Star State. With each passing hour, Q and Anglea uncover more cluse and discover more leads. And the mysterious Boone and his SOS team leave them with more questions than answers.

Meet coauthor Michael P. Spradlin...

SBP: Mike, you're making your first appearance as coauthor in Book 4: The Alamo. How does it feel to join Match and the gang on tour?

MS: It's exciting, exhilarating, and truthfully, a bit nervewracking. I look at the first three books as a giant tapestry. Q, Angela, and the others have started tugging at the loose strings on this tapestry and every string is leading them to a different place. But they're all ocnnected. In Book 4: The Alamo, readers can expect more  clues about the true identity of the Ghost Cell. It's going to be a fun ride!

Roland, in the I,Q Series, you’ve written about two pretty amazing kids. In addition to adjusting to a newly blended family and their parents’ instant success, Q and Angela are thrown into some really scary situations. How have they coped so well and what can your readers learn from them?

Answer: Q and Angela's skills complement each other making them stronger as team than they are as individuals. They are able to share their fears openly with each other and this lessens impact of the frightening situation they have stumbled into. They are not only half brother and sister, they are becoming true friends. We all need a friend to lean on when the chips are down.

"I’m often asked why I write books.  The answer is that I write about what's important to me, and what is most important to me in all of my novels are the characters. I care about what happens to them just as you do when you’re reading my novel.”

Things haven't changed all that much, Smith still spends several hours a day in his room clacking away, and still loves the sound of the keyboard, and the look of the letters and words that eventually turn into stories. Today, however, Smith is known for such award-winning titles as Sea Otter Rescue, Journey of the Red Wolf, Thunder Cave, Jaguar, Peak and Zack's Lie, and has a faithful audience of both fiction and non-fiction readers.

Smith majored in English and biology at Portland State University with a goal of becoming a writer. A college work-study program led him to part-time work at the Portland children's zoo, which he thought might provide some interesting writing material. Instead, the program led to a more-than-twenty-year career in zoo keeping, first at Portland's main zoo, and then at the Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma, Washington, where Smith became general curator and assistant director, as well as senior research biologist.

In his noteworthy career, Smith led the team of biologists rescuing the sea otters after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 and re-introduced the nearly extinct red wolf back into its native habitat of North Carolina, South Carolina and Mississippi.

In 1995, Roland transitioned from his work as a research biologist to become a full-time writer.

Through his writing and school visits, Roland Smith works to educate a new generation of kids about what is important to him. Whether it is animals at the brink of extinction, or the environment, Smith tackles subjects that he is passionate about. In his new middle grades novel, I, Q, Smith addresses international terrorism coupled with the music industry. Smith delayed writing about terrorism until he was certain that it would not be going away at any time in the near future. He feels that I, Q opens the door to much-needed discussion. Raised in the music business, Smith decided to incorporate those experiences as a back-drop for this fast paced, cross-country adventure.

Visit Roland's website