A story about one all-inclusive resort, the ghost of an unknown father, and the tragedies we can’t forget.

What’s it like when everyone’s dream vacation is your job? Ameera works at a Mexican all-inclusive resort, where every day is paradise — if “paradise” means endless paperwork, quotas to meet, and entitled tourists. But it’s not all bad: Ameera’s pastime of choice is the swingers scene, and the resort is the perfect place to hook up with like-minded couples without all the hassle of having to see them again.

Despite Ameera’s best efforts to keep her sideline a secret, someone is spreading scandalous rumours about her around the resort, and her job might be at stake. Meanwhile, she’s being plagued by her other secret, the big unknown of her existence: the identity of her father and why he disappeared. Unbeknownst to Ameera, her father, Azeez, is looking for her, and they both must come to terms with the reason why he abandoned her.

A moving new work from award-winning author Farzana Doctor, All Inclusive blurs the lines between the real world and paradise, and life and death, and reminds us that love is neither easily lost nor found.

Now Magazine Best Author • Kobo Best Book of the Year — Canadian Favourites Category

Farzana Doctor is a Toronto-based Registered Social Worker who has been working with individuals and couples since 1993. As an activist, educator and writer, she has taught clinicians, co-written manuals for mental health providers and contributed chapters and articles about 2SLGBTQ+ issues, anti-oppression, self-care and female genital mutilation/cutting. She is the co-founder of WeSpeakOut and the End FGM Canada Network. She has written four critically acclaimed novels and a poetry collection.

Farzana Doctor's profile page

• Winner, NOW Magazine Best Author

The imagination of the afterlife is one of the highlights of the novel.… Doctor crafts a modern ghost story that emphasizes an open mind when it comes to history and a focus on its outcomes rather than its cause.

Ottawa Writer’s Festival

All Inclusive is a page turner, and Doctor is a deliciously evocative writer.

Literary Review of Canada

Her outstanding characterization and the depth of language establish the importance of Farzana Doctor’s writing. In her startling and evocative description of the lives of people in the tourist industry, All Inclusive is more than just a title.

Austin Clarke, Giller Prize-winning author of The Polished Hoe

Farzana Doctor’s third novel, All Inclusive, is a rare, somewhat whimsical but vibrantly coloured toucan in a nest of Canadian starlings … All Inclusive is not your traditional Can Lit (capital C, capital L) and thank god for it.

Plentitude

An ambitious, thematically voracious novel on love and the wounds we didn’t know we had.

Globe & Mail

Yep, it is a provocative novel, one that will raise eyebrows.

The Sun Times

In the worlds that Farzana Doctor creates, ordinary people are wondrous and complicated, and all these things that divide us — countries, professions, sexualities, genders, races — are mere distractions from what truly matters. Her stories ring true enough to think our world could be that way too. One can only hope.

Daily Xtra

Farzana Doctor’s original, provocative new novel seduces (and challenges) readers on every page. All Inclusive is Doctor’s best — and sexiest! — work yet.

Angie Abdou, author of The Bone Cage

Doctor must be commended for her ability to render a disembodied “meandering whoosh” sympathetic.

Quill & Quire

Ambitious, original, mysterious, sensual, All Inclusive is all that — and a terrific read to boot.

Toronto Star

By turns funny, moving, thoughtful, and erotic, All Inclusive is a powerful meditation on life, love, and loss. Farzana Doctor spins a passionate, page-turning tale about the sometimes invisible ties that bind. This is brilliant storytelling.

Terry Fallis, author of The Best Laid Plans

All Inclusive is chock full of surprises. It has ghostly spirits, grief, young adult angst, intrigue, and even some touches of erotica … Doctor is able to blend these elements into something unique and captivating.

Speaking Across Centuries