Kingston Daley has done everything right.

Top of his class. Years of relentless climbing. Campaigns praised in the conference room and credited to someone else in the boardroom. As one of the few Black men at his level inside a corporation that speaks the language of inclusion and practices the opposite, Kingston has become an expert at being twice as prepared and half as visible ? and it has cost him more than he will ever say out loud.

When he meets Brianna Cole ? sharp, driven, and the kind of woman who makes a room recalibrate itself ? Kingston allows himself to believe he has finally found someone who sees him clearly. But brilliance without integrity leaves marks. And some lessons only arrive after the damage is done.

By the time the smoke clears on everything Kingston thought he was building, only one thing remains certain: the ladder he has spent a decade climbing was leaned against the wrong wall.

Roots in Concrete is the story of a man who survives the people determined to bury him ? and discovers that the most dangerous thing he will ever do is finally decide to grow.

Book 1 of The Elevation Series by Vivienne Ashcroft.