Passing SpokenString a parameter expression

I am trying to create a simple cloud deployed API function that will take an expression, e.g. “8*9” as a parameter and will return the spoken string “8 times 9”. I can’t seem to figure out the ToExpression, ToString? HoldForm? mechanism in conjunction with to make this work…

CloudDeploy[APIFunction[“expression” → “String”,
SpokenString[HoldForm[#expression]] &, “HTML”],Permissions → “Public”]

Did you ever find an answer to your issue, Steve? I see you have no replies here on the Wolfram Community, but I’m hoping you came up with a solution on your own or found one elsewhere. I’m having a similar problem with HoldForm, Defer, Hold, and other functions that should prevent evaluation of an expression. They just don’t seem to work in the Cloud environment, at least not as I’m using them.

You can see a description of my issue here .