Manal Al-Gosaibi is a young woman of Saudi Arabian descent living a hedonistic lifestyle in Ottawa, Ontario. Her parents fled the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia after being labeled Shiite rebels by the Sunni-led Monarchy. After emancipating herself from her family, Manal enrolls at the University of Ottawa and does her own thing. At Mansion Night Club, Manal meets Tyrese Montrose, a newcomer from Buffalo, New York. Once an orphan taken in by a rich white family which eventually shunned him, Tyrese left N.Y. for Ontario after college to start a new life. In Manal, Tyrese finds someone who can...

17-year-old Rabia Abdelfattah experiences a brand new world when she moves to Toronto, Ontario, from Alexandria, Egypt, with her family in the summer of 1997. Her parents fled Egypt after her father Samir Abdelfattah, a former Minister of Domestic Security, sold Egyptian state secrets to both the Israelis and the Americans. The family arrives in Canada as internationally hounded refugee claimants. As the only Hijab-wearing Muslim girl at a Catholic school, Rabia feels isolated and is the frequent target of racists and Islamophobes. Her only ally in this hostile environment is Joseph Guillot,...