We chat with author Caitlin Cross about On Screen & Off Again, which is aromantic will-they-won’t-they debut with a Hollywood twist, for fans of Love & Other Words and Every Summer After. PLUS we have an excerpt to share with you at the end of the chapter!
Hi, Caitlin! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hi, The Nerd Daily! So stoked to have this opportunity to chat about my book!
I’m a former theater kid, a total pop culture dork, an avid quoter of 2000’s rom-com movie lines, a Swiftie, and an animal lover. I grew up in Los Angeles, and am now based in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with my amazing husband, Andrew, and our three bossy miniature Dachshunds, Rosie, Winnie and Yeti.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
From a super young age, I’ve been drawn to storytelling. As a kid, I used to write little stories here and there, sometimes fan fiction, but it wasn’t until I was in high school that I remember writing an actual book by hand in a notebook. I went to an all-girls school and my classmates passed the book around, taking turns reading in class. Watching their faces light up from across the classroom when they got to certain parts of the book was the first time I thought maybe I could have a career as an author.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: Fly Away Home by K.D. Plum. It was a picture book my dad picked out for me to read with my mom when he was away on location filming.
- The one that made you want to become an author: The Princess Diaries series by Meg Cabot. Mia x Michael Moscovitz forever!!! The voice in these books is incredible. Charming, hilarious, feminist. True gems.
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry or anything by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Your debut novel, On Screen & Off Again, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Cinematic. Swoony. Pining. Emotional. Jell-O
What can readers expect?
A sweeping Hollywood love story with flawed characters who we root for to grow from their past traumas and mistakes. Characters that feel like actual movie stars we’d see in our real world. Expect a ton of incredible tropes like friends to lovers, forced proximity, dual timeline/dual pov, he falls first and harder, grumpy/sunshine, it’s always been you, to name a few. Vulnerable, emotional moments drawn from some of my own experiences. This is a book that feels like a movie.
Where did the inspiration for On Screen & Off Again come from?
I grew up in Los Angeles surrounded by the industry because my dad, Alan Cross, was working as a television writer/director/producer throughout my childhood on shows like Desperate Housewives, Weird Science, and Dawson’s Creek. Because of that, I had the incredible good fortune to get to spend time on actual sets. There’s so much magic on a set, but also a lot of pressure, a bit of chaos, and forced proximity, so I thought it would be the perfect, tension-filled place to plop a love story into the middle of.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
The ending of the book (no spoilers here–don’t worry!) has a scene that I was SO excited to write. It’s based off of a swoony, iconic moment that happened onstage at the 2005 MTV Movie Awards and is to this day one of my favorite things that’s ever happened.
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
This was my first time writing a dual timeline book, so getting the past chapters and present chapters to line up just right and complement each other and the plot overall was a total challenge. I’m lucky to have amazing critique partners who read early drafts and gave thoughtful notes as I edited.
This is your debut novel! What was the road to becoming a published author like for you?
Oh my god, truly the wildest ride! On Screen is my third novel, but the first to be published, so I went through a ton of query letter rejections on earlier books in order to land my first agent. When I was finally agented, it was time to go out on submission with the manuscript to editors, which is so tough because your dreams have never felt closer to coming true but there’s still so far to go. There were still lots of rejections, but finally we got an offer from my editor, Allison Moore at 8th Note Press, and I knew the book was in excellent hands.
What’s next for you?
Definitely some Hollywood romance books in the works. Stay tuned!
Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up in 2025?
Emily Henry’s Great Big Beautiful Life is at the top of my list! I’m also so excited for Crash Landing by Annie McQuaid, Hopelessly Teavoted by Audrey Goldberg Ruoff, and Never Been Shipped by Alicia Thompson.
FIRST CHAPTER EXCERPT
NOW
DAX
Out the window of this coffee shop is a billboard with my humungous face on it.
I see it as soon as I sit down. It’s looming over Sepulveda, an ad for the limited series thriller I managed to sneak my way onto. Nobody’s gonna look up at that thing and see me, though, not with an ensemble like that. The lead is Daniel Craig. And, really, I should probably be Andrew Garfield, but he must have been poisoned or in hiding or something, so they wound up with me.
My hand shakes a little as I raise the coffee to my lips. My glasses slip down my nose.
The only reason I’m up there on the side of a building is because of Greg Edgeway. He’s inexplicably been in my corner since that first screen test. Pushed me all the way through the casting process until I got to spend six months in front of the camera while he sat behind, feeding me magic.
I owe him everything.
And today, he wants to meet me for coffee. To discuss a leading role in a film he’ll be directing.
Even thinking those words, I get giddy and fluttery and nervous, like I used to get about a girl when I was seventeen. Greg wants me to play the lead. As in, my name comes first on the call sheet. My name comes first in the fucking credits. That is not the reality that I’ve been orbiting—ever.
I’ve built a career on sidekicks and comic relief. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want more.
A bell above the door chimes and I almost jump out of my skin in anticipation. Greg comes striding in, shoulders back, ball cap just so, over to my table.
“Dax.” He throws out his powerful hand.
I get up too fast and almost send my chair crashing to the floor before throwing my increasingly clammy hand into his crushing grip and grinning, breathless. “Greg. How are you?”
“Not as good as you are. Jesus. Look at you up there.” He points to the billboard and sits down across from me, signaling to a passing server for coffee.
Greg has this bad-ass old Hollywood vibe to him. He used to run in the same circles as Spielberg, Lucas, Cameron. They all were young dudes in the seventies, set loose on some of the greatest films of all time, and they have the Oscars to show for it. Including Greg.
“Have I thanked you lately?” I say.
“At least eight hundred times,” says Greg. We laugh. “I brought you this.” He digs in his computer bag and pulls out a bound script and a paperback book. He hands them to me.
“To the Stars,” I read off the book’s front cover.
“Heard of it?”
“Yeah, actually.” It’s one of those books that sweeps bestseller lists like wildfire. “I saw something about it yesterday, I think. They said it’s been the number-one bestseller for twenty-five weeks.”
“That’s it,” says Greg. “And I’ve got the film rights.”
My breathing quickens. I keep my face neutral, professional, normal, but if I was Daffy Duck, my beak would be falling off in surprise. This is the film he wants me to star in?
“And you want me to . . . star?”
The waiter arrives with Greg’s coffee and he takes his time stirring in the sugar, adding a splash of milk. He clinks his spoon softly on the mug’s edge, then lays it down, folds his hands beneath his chin and looks at me.
“I read that book in one night. Gorgeous story. The male lead is Nick. Young kid, bright, ambitious, dirt poor. Falls for a beautiful girl just extremely out of his league. And she falls for him. Daxon, I closed the cover when it was over and the only person I had in my head as Nick was you.”
I blink at him. “Did you leave the gas on, or something?”
“Don’t be a smart-ass,” says Greg, laughing. “This part is yours.”
The moon could fall out of the sky and crash into the parking lot outside and I wouldn’t see it. “It’s mine. Just like that? No audition?”
“That was your audition,” he says, and gestures out the window to the billboard. “Now I just gotta find a Lila.”
“A what?”
“The female lead. Lila. I want someone unexpected, like you. Someone who feels real.”
He nods. I nod. I may have forgotten how to speak. “We start auditions next week,” says Greg. “I want you there for chemistry reads. What do you say?” He holds out his hand to me again.
Numb, trembling, full of lightning bolts, I stretch out my hand and we shake on it.
___
I read the book in an afternoon and wander around my apartment in a haze for hours afterwards, my eyes puffy. This is the saddest fucking thing I’ve ever read. The story’s breathtaking. The characters are alive and full of hope and softness, right on the cusp of World War II, where life has nothing but shit to throw at them.
And if I thought the book was good, Greg’s script is better.
The hard thing, I realize as we head into auditions, is that finding someone for Lila who not only is gorgeous, feels like a real person, is funny in a way you wouldn’t expect, and looks timeless, but can also act and do it well, may be almost impossible.
That first week, I think we see forty-five women.
The next week, forty-five more.
Some auditions are short. Not a fit, the scene goes by, no sparks, a name is crossed off a list and they send in the next. Some, however, are long, with actresses who want to spend twenty minutes talking through the dynamic of Nick and Lila, creating off-the-page backstory to increase our on-screen chemistry.
And there are a handful that are really good. Collectively, they have everything you’d need to bring Lila to life. But individually, something is always lacking.
Greg takes me and the casting team to dinner late on Friday after an endless callback session where no actual decision is made. He massages the place between his brows, stares at the table for a while, then looks up at me.
“Know anyone who might be good?” he asks.
I’m about to tell him no, when a name comes flying out of the past, straight out of my heart, and kicks me in the face: Wilhelmina Chase.
Okay, so we haven’t spoken in probably seven years. That’s problem number one. Problem number two is I have absolutely no idea how to get back in touch with her.
There’s no how-to for reconnecting with your estranged ex-childhood best friend and first girlfriend—first everything. Really, there’s not a whole lot of my early life that Wil wasn’t part of. It used to be so easy with her, like opening the blinds and letting the sun in. But I’m imagining myself texting her now and coming up short.
Does she even have the same number?
Focus, Daxon, she used to say to me. I can hear her voice now, clanging off the walls of my skull.
I’ll text her. Maybe. If I take enough deep breaths first. Or, no, I’ll call her. I’ll be really casual and normal and calm and . . . who the hell am I kidding? I know the first thing to fall out of my mouth the moment she says “Hello?” will be nervous gibberish.
Point is, there’s no easy way to do this.
I’ll just have to jump, and hope I land on something solid.
Here goes nothing.
Literally.
I have no ideas.
Please send help.
