The Forty Rules of Love

By Elif Shafak

Ella Rubinstein has a husband, three teenage children and a pleasant home. Everything that should make her confident and fulfilled. Yet there is an emptiness at the heart of her life – an emptiness once filled by love.

So when Ella reads a manuscript about the thirteenth-century Sufi poet Rumi and his mentor Shams of Tabriz, and his forty rules of life and love, she is ready to look at her life anew. Compelled to embrace change, she embarks on a journey to meet the mysterious author. It is a quest infused with Sufi mysticism and verse, taking Ella and us into a faraway world where faith and doubt are heartbreakingly explored. The Forty Rules of Love is a mesmerizing tale of discovery, language, truth and, of course, love itself.