*the International bestseller* Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we havent loved enough. . . 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 Ellas life - an emptiness once filled by love. So when Ella reads a manuscript about the thirteenth-century Sufi poet Rumi and Shams of Tabriz, and his forty rules of life and love, her world is turned upside down. She embarks on a journey to meet the mysterious author of this work. It is a quest infused with Sufi mysticism and verse, taking Ella and us into an exotic world where faith and love are heartbreakingly explored. . . Enlightening, enthralling. An affecting paean to faith and love Metro Colourfully woven and beguilingly intelligent Daily Telegraph the past and present fit together beautifully in a passionate defence of passion itself the Times