It’s difficult to find love in a profession like Ambroise’s – even his father despises what he does . . .

And while Manelle – a home-help for the elderly in the same small French town – adores her days spent with her eccentric clients, she too often ends her evenings alone.

So when an unusual request from Manelle’s favourite client – eighty-two-year-old retired chef-gourmand Samuel – brings the two of them together for an unlikely road-trip to Switzerland, along with Ambroise’s cake-loving grandmother, it might just be time for the rest of their lives to begin . . .

Guylain Vignolles lives on the edge of existence. Working at a book pulping factory in a job he hates, he has but one pleasure in life . . .

Sitting on the 6.27 train each day, Guylain recites aloud from pages he has saved from the jaws of his monstrous pulping machine. But it is when he discovers the diary of a lonely young woman, Julie – a woman who feels as lost in the world as he does – that his journey will truly begin . . .

The Reader on the 6.27 is a tale bursting with larger-than-life characters, each of whom touches Guylain’s life for the better. For fans of Amelie and Mr Penumbra’s 24-hour Bookstore, this captivating novel is a warm, funny fable about literature’s power to uplift even the most downtrodden of lives.