Heavenly Pleasures was a delightful surprise. The story takes place in Melbourne, Australia so one must get acclimated to words and phrases that can be odd and peculiar to a reader living in the United States. However, this is a tiny glitch in the reading and very surmountable. The story revolves around Corinna...an accountant turned bread maker...and her boyfriend Daniel, her cat Horatio, her apprentice Jason and a motley assortment of quirky, odd and lovable characters who live in her neighborhood.

The book is a typical who done it...that is quite interesting...someone is injecting chili pepper sauce into gourmet chocolates...oh...there is a bombing and a sort of kidnapping and lots of mysterious characters. All of this is far from the best part of the book which is the delightful infusion of kitty characters...this was all such a wonderful reading romp for me...if you love cats you will adore this book. Just one more thing about this book...you will crave freshly baked bread for about a week after reading it...this book is a delightful must read!!!

I found this book to be mildly interesting, just a bit odd and full of quirky characters. I am quite certain that you have to love an old fashioned English mystery to thoroughly enjoy this book. The pastimes, habits, and conversations were sometimes a bit confusing and made the reading of this book quite slow. Hop picking, gypsies and living in tents and caravans all sort of added to the "other worldliness" of this novel. I think this is the first and last Maisie Dobbs book that I will attempt...not enough excitement for this mystery lover.