Guest Post and Giveaway: Double Clutch by Liz Reinhardt

Today I have the awesome Liz Reinhardt to do an amazing guest post for her book Double Clutch!

My high school wardrobe consisted of lots of plaid flannel button down shirts and old man pants my best friend and I found after hours in second hand shops and yard sales. My mom would see my outfit for the day and click her tongue.


Seriously, this could be a picture of me and my friends in high school. Flannel was very, very cool.

"Lizzie, those pants are disgusting. You're going to get bug you-know-where from wearing someone else's pants. And they smell like dirty old man." She would wrinkle her nose and sigh.

"I washed them!" I would argue, secretly feeling that itchy feeling you get when you imagine tiny bugs all over you. But I would run back to my room to get one more look in the mirror, just to be sure the polyester bell-bottom golf pants were as cool as they had been when I picked them up. I decided they were! And they did NOT itch. Or maybe only a little. But that was the polyester. It had to be.

Um, they were hideous. I guess I was trying to define a style all my own, and I did it by picking the most hideous, vomit-inducing thing I could find so I would stand out.

Luckily, my high school was very chill and accepting. No one batted an eyelash at my suddenly-very-itchy polyester monstrosities, which was actually a little disappointing. I so wanted people to pay attention. Especially Mr. CDW, my big time crush. Why didn't he notice me?! I was wearing bright green and blue plaid golf pants! How could he miss me?! (No, I have never had a very good grasp on logic or fashion, but thank you for asking!)


Hello, good sir! When you're done sweating in those hideous polyester monstrosities, could you please hand them my way! I really think my crush will notice me if I wear something super flashy! Tell me, do a lot of people ask for your number when you wear those pants?

If my real, true personal style had been flannel shirts and polyester golf pants, I probably could have rocked the look. But I was just doing it to get CDW to notice me and because I thought I was being hip and edgy (and a little itchy, but I was dealing with it..so what if it felt like skin might be bubbling off? I looked cool! Right?). As I got older, I figured out that my style could still be original without giving me rashes and making me smell like forty years' worth of Old Spice.


No matter how hilarious and sexy the commercials make it out to be, it's just not s smell that works for most high school girls.

My husband recently confessed that he remembers the very first time he saw me (and developed a big, huge crush that would lead to his eventually asking me out and, even more eventually asking me to marry him) right down to the outfit I was wearing. My husband is a really cool, fun, loving guy, but he doesn't usually notice clothes. The weird thing was, my outfit wasn't super amazing...just a red v-neck sweater and tan pants. But I felt really pretty in it. The clothes fit perfectly, the color of the sweater was so bright and gorgeous, I always wore my favorite perfume, I learned to do my hair in something other than a bun with two pencils sticking out of it...I looked so good to him because I felt so good. And I felt good because I finally figured out my own style.


Woohoo! Well, I would have done this, except I'm kind of clumsy and don't think I could jump that high. But the point is, that's how I felt!

When I wrote Double Clutch, it was so exciting to realize that I could basically reimagine high school. Not that I had such a rough time! Like I said, my high school was really accepting. But I didn't have a good feel for who I was or what I liked. I wanted to write about a girl who people would love and connect to, and I realized a really important part of that would be making sure she knew and liked herself first.

When I wrote my main character, Brenna Blixen, I also knew I wanted her to be in a love triangle with two incredible guys. And I knew I wanted it to be realistic that these two amazing guys would fall for her.


There's Brenna, and there are Saxon and Jake, hating each other and  crushing on her! My mom says they look like punks, which only makes me like them more. I have a major soft spot for the bad boys!

I started writing and it quickly occurred to me that there were so many possible ways I could make her 'cool.' She could run track, have lived overseas, design t-shirts, help new punk bands get discovered...and I put all that in the book. But the thing that makes her the coolest is that she knows herself. She has her own style and her own way of doing things, and she doesn't hide out or worry about what everyone else thinks of her. That's what makes Saxon and Jake sit up and take notice. (Well, she's also cute and smart and funny, but it all goes back to her self confidence.)

It's not that Brenna is so perfect or so amazing or so brilliant; she's just really confident and that makes her fun to be around. And I think that's something we all want. It's the number one thing I'd give to my teenage self, if I could give one good-fairy gift. And it's the number one thing I wish on every one of my readers.


Okay, if I could have three traits blessed on me by magic fairies they would be; the ability to rip it up on the dance floor and have everyone form a circle around me and look on with admiration, the ability to defeat my fear of rollercoasters and not cry in line like a baby and have to make them stop the ride to let me off before it starts, and lots of self confidence, natch.


Brenna messes up. She does things that don't make sense, she does things she regrets, but she always tries to stay true to herself, and that's what makes her cool. At least I think so. You'll have to check out the book and see if you agree!

Double Clutch is available for Nook and Kindle, and will be out for paperback soon! If you want to write me or contact me, my blog is elizabethreinhardt.blogspot.com, you can follow me on Goodreads, like me on Facebook, follow @lizreinhardt on Twitter, or email me at lizreinhardtwrites@gmail.com.

Thank you all for reading! Please contact me any time! And a huge thank you to Sarah for having me on your blog! You rock!!




Today I have the amazing Liz Reinhardt to talk about her first book, Double Clutch!