Best Supporting Actor (Creative Types) Paperback – August 28, 2023

OMG, I loved this book! I’ve enjoyed all the books in the series, and this one is just as brilliant as the first two. Sally and Joanna have a way of weaving together a story that is both humorous and touching at the same time. Throw that together with some good old-fashioned chemistry and this book is the result.Tag’s got a problem – he can’t catch a break. An acting break in particular. He’s done one toothpaste commercial and a promising part on a pilot television show that might or might not get picked up. Then he’s given the opportunity of his career – a two-man show with a famous, yet unknown to him, actor. He’s all in and after his audition goes brilliantly, he gets the role. Only to discover he’ll be acting next to Jay Warren. His arch-nemesis. That one disastrous night is about to come back to bite both of them in the tush.Jay was born into acting royalty – with a mother who’s famous the world over. Oh, and a brother and sister in the biz as well. Jay’s never struggled. He’s also got a leading role in a very successful television series. He doesn’t want to do theatre – but his mother’s always going on about how theatre is real acting (implying, to him, that his television work isn’t). Outside people convince him to do a play – not realizing the depth of his stage fright. But he’s an actor, right? So he can act his way through the stage fright.Or not.This story has a brilliant cast of secondary characters – including supporting roles for those who love Tag and Jay. As well, there are villainous characters who are truly awful. Might those jerks get their comeuppance? One hopes.This was a powerful story about how two people from different sides of the tracks can put aside animosity to create beautiful art. How forgiveness is powerful. How theatre can transform.Loved it. Just loved it. You have to listen to it. And if you haven’t listened to the previous two, you need to nab those as well.Simon Goldhill is a talented narrator. Now, I don’t know British accents, but I could hear the variations to know he clearly does. Even his American is good! He alone is worth the price of admission – but stay for the show that is this brilliant book.

This is a hate-each-other trope or the intensively sexual attraction trope between popular TV Actor Jay and starving Actor wannabe Tag. Everything about the tale is likable: the MCs, the premise, the side characters even the backstory. It’s a lighthearted, predictable, with very little angst story. Overall, it’s very entertaining.

I almost thought I might not love this book as much as the previous ones, since the previous ones were so good. But nope, I loved it. I wanted to give so much love and comfort to Jay and even though Tag had a tendency to lash out in a way that might make some people want to smack him, he and Jay worked so well together on the whole that I never felt anything but affection for him. There's a lot of serious moments for the characters, but there's also humor and sweetness to balance it out. The side characters were also pretty well developed, or as much as they needed to be, adding more to the story and the development with all their interactions. Some were so darn loveable that I'd almost wish that they could be main characters, though they'd likely be not quite in the same type of romance genre. I'd say more but I don't want to spoil anything. It's so much better to just experience it as it goes along.I've officially never read or listened to anything by Joanna Chambers that I haven't loved and since all the Sally Chambers books I've read have been cowritten with Chambers, I can now say that I have loved all her work too. I can't envision another pairing for this series, but I'd be into it.The narration continued to be just as excellent for this book as the previous two. I really liked the juxtaposition of Jay's posh accent with Tag's working class one. This entire series has a lot of different levels of class and regional differences for the narrator to juggle and although I'm American and might not 100% know what's totally accurate, I felt it was done well. (I know I've heard American narrators butcher American regional accents, so hey, maybe these British folks weren't perfect, but it seemed right to me.)

In this third installment of the Creative Types series, we find Tag and Jay finding friendship as they are cast as the lead roles in a play together. Both come from very different places - Tag is trying to make it and this will have a significant impact on his future career as well as trying to figure out financially how to make this all work, whereas Jay’s struggles are much more emotional. He’s already starred in a hit series but has some scars from an experience with a play when he was less experienced that he has to work through. As you may imagine, their friendship ultimately gets both of them where they need to be. My favorite part is watching Jay slowly realize how diametrically opposed he and Tag’s current living situations are. That dawning realization and biting insight really does propel the two closer together. Ultimately both will have to make some choices - you can see this train wreck coming - but by putting each other first everyone is going to come out ahead. I’ve read/listened to books two and three of this series, looking forward to going back to book one. Had a hard time putting this one down at the end.

This third (and, sadly, final) book in the Creative Types series lets the reader into the life of actors rehearsing for a play. Jay is famous (lead on the TV show written by the main characters of book 1) while Tag hasn't had much opportunity to show his talent yet, but both are passionate about their work... and, as they appeared in the previous two books, finally getting to find out what happened to turn "enemies" into lovers felt like a real treat.

See my review of the first book in this series - it covers all three books. All are highly recommended.

I am so happy that Tag and Jay got their own story and it was really lovely to read about them learning more about each other. All of the characters feel so real, with flaws and baggage but always trying their best. I really love the entire series and these books definitely stand out to me as especially good rom-coms that I am surely going to reread in the future.

”Creative　Types”のシリーズ３作目（１作目、２作目を読んでいなくても、これだけでも楽しめる内容だけど、前作まで読んでいたら、ちょっと懐かしい顔ぶれがいっぱい出てきます）。いつかは役者として芽を出したいTagと、大女優を母に持ち生まれた時から恵まれた環境にあるTVスターのJayが、初めはお互い敵愾心を持ちながら、段々と相手を理解し始めていき、惹かれ合う様になるまでの過程が無理なく楽しめた。ロマンティック・コメディとして定番だけどとても面白かった。リハーサルの様子がとても臨場感があって、芝居の内容も、下地になる知識が無くても十分に理解できるように描かれているのが凄いと思った（結構切ない内容なのです）。London の中でもPoshな発音と、下町の発音があるのだとは知っているけれど、実際にAudible版が出たら聞いてみたいと思う（現在第1巻だけ出ています）。ただ、個人的には”ENCORE”の部分は無くても良かったかな、という気がした。悪者は完全にやっつけるというのは悪くないけれど、誰に何を言われても自信を持って役者を続けていこうとする二人にとって、過去に因縁のあった人物たちがどうなろうとなかろうと、別にかまわない気がする。本編の所で終わっている方が感動的かも、と思った。

Chambers and Malcolm are something special together. Their stories have layers and depths to them that the majority of M/M stories lack. I hope they do more collaborative work in the future.