The forty rules of love

Elif Shafak's compelling novel, "The Forty Rules of Love", follows Ella Rubinstein on a journey of self-discovery as she examines her life and the concept of love through Sufi mysticism.

Discover the forty rules of love...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 Ella's 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"). Elif Shafak has emerged as one of the most distinctive voices in both English and Turkish contemporary literature; her novels, "The Bastard of Istanbul", "The Flea Palace", "The Gaze" and "Honour", are consistently at the top of bestseller lists across the globe.

Elif Shafak's examination of national identity, "The Happiness of Blond People" is available as part of the "Penguin Specials" series - a digital only series of shorts designed with commuters in mind.