Stage Fright (Christy of Cutter Gap) Paperback – April 2, 2022

This one was such a gimmick. Christy has her class read Romeo and Juliet, and then Doctor MacNeill walks in as she is reciting Juliet’s lines, as it turns out that she played Juliet on stage in high school… and it also turns out that Doctor MacNeill’s aunt is the director of the Knoxville Players, who just happen to be putting on Romeo and Juliet. She comes to visit, and invites Christy to come out and be part of the show as a bit player… only of course they end up without a Juliet, forced to use Christy instead (as if she remembers all the lines from high school. I’ve had nightmares of exactly this scenario, where I find I’m playing the lead role in a show I was in in high school, and it’s opening night, but of course I don’t remember the lines.) Then for good measure, Neil goes back with them, and there’s a love triangle, and a jealous stage hand tries to sabotage Christy’s performance… it doesn’t fit the Cutter Gap story at all. It takes the same characters, but it reads like fan fiction. The extrapolation is just too far to work, for me.