The Forty Rules of Love: A Novel of Rumi is a lyrical reminder of the importance of love in life. Ella is a homemaker, mother of three children, and wife to a discreetly unfaithful husband living a comfortable, pragmatic life in suburban Massachusetts when the first assignment at her new part-time job is to review a manuscript called Sweet Blasphemy. An argument with her eldest daughter and the book cause Ella to re-evaluate the priorities in her life while we readers follow along in Sweet Blasphemy. The timeline switches back and forth between the present and the thirteenth century, when the encounter between Shams-i-Tabrizi and Rumi, the celebrated Persian poet, takes place. Shams is a itinerant Sufi mystic who relates the forty rules of love. He and Rumi strike a deep spiritual love/friendship, similar to what happens when Ella contacts and corresponds with the manuscripts author, Aziz Zahara.

Disappointingly, the thirteenth century parts are related in a series of first-person chapters from a chorus of voices which all sound very similar. The central relationship between Shams and Rumi remains mysterious and obscure, despite chapters told through their eyes. Nonetheless, there is a sense of resolution at the end of this story which is a gentle introduction to Sufism, some real historical characters, and the principle that love should play a central role in life and religion.