It's 2007, and Shanika Ann Jenkins is the pride of her African-American family; blonde, blue-eyed, and beautiful. Most of her relatives are pleased with how she represents years of passing down light skin and marrying well - though her mother insists she remember and respect her true African-American heritage -- and so gives her a name which reflects her ethnicity. But when Shanika is turned down for a job at a PR firm because she’s not black enough to fill the company’s unofficial African-American quota, she changes her name to Nicole, and gets another position. It’s not her fault, she reasons, that everyone assumes she’s white. But the more she gets, the more people she hurts. When a successful African-American businessman thinks Shanika is the white woman of his dreams, her world spins out of control. With her future on the line, she’ll have to go beyond skin-deep to discover what’s really worth reaching for—and the person she truly wants to be.