Ella Rubinstein, an unhappy forty woman, gets a job as a literary agency critic when her first job is to criticize and report on a book called Sweet Rows, a novel written by a man named Aziz Zahara. Ella is fascinated by the story of Shams' search for Rumi and the role of the dervish in transforming a successful but unhappy cleric into a committed mystic, passionate poet, and advocate of love. It is also taken with the lessons or rules of Shams, which provide an insight into the ancient philosophy that was based on the unification of people and religions, and the presence of love within each of us. By reading this book, she realizes that Rumi's story reflects her own and that Zahara, as Shams did in the novel, came to show her the path to freedom.