Miller, Karen E. Quinones

Regina Harris has managed to clean up her life and leave the gang-infested streets of Harlem behind her, but she finds herself drawn back towards her old lifestyle as she tries to help her three best friends, who still live on the streets.

Shanika Ann Jenkins, an African-American who has light skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes, struggles with the fact her colleagues all think she is Caucasian and with her mother's insistence that she embrace her heritage; but by falling in love with an African-American man, she eventually learns that skin color doesn't make the person.

College student Tiara Bynum lives with her younger sister, Jo-Jo, and her doting father, Reggie, in a Harlem housing project, where Tiara believes she is entitled to anything she desires, not realizing how her demands are forcing her father into financial ruin.