Black Coffee (Strivers Row)

“I may be a supersoldier but I sure as hell ain’t no Superwoman. Yes, it’s true my hand is steady, I have the eye of a marksman, and I can hit a moving target dead center at four hundred meters, but when it comes to making clever love decisions, I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer. While I look pretty lofty in my spit-shined combat boots and razor-sharp battle dress uniform, like a lot of young sisters from the ’hood, I’ve taken a few wrong turns down the back alleys of life.”

Meet Sergeant Sanderella Coffee, who has just completed a three-year overseas tour and is now reporting to a military installation in Virginia. She is a single mother whose goal is to attend the Army’s prestigious Officer Candidate School, which will guarantee a better life for her and her children.

Sandie meets a man who matches her ambition and determination step for step in the form of Drill Sergeant Romulus Caesar, who literally marches into her life and turns it upside down. They fall in love, and Rom is everything Sandie could want—supportive, confident, self-reliant—but he’s also married. Because of the military’s tough policy on fraternization and adultery, Sandie could find her carefully orchestrated career slipping away like sand in a breeze.