Patricia Wants to Cuddle

One of the Best Books of 2022 NPR • Them • LitHub • CrimeReads • Book Riot • Chicago Review of Books “A one-of-a-kind queer horror comedy for people who watch The Bachelor and The X-Files back-to-back.” ―Kirkus Reviews On this season of The Catch, contestants must compete for love. And their lives. When the final four women in competition for an aloof, somewhat sleazy bachelor’s heart arrive on a mysterious island in the Pacific Northwest, they prepare themselves for another week of extreme sleep deprivation, invasive interviews, and, of course, the salacious drama eager viewers nationwide tune in to devour. Each woman came on The Catch for her own reasons―brand sponsorships, followers, and, yes, even love―and they’ve all got their eyes steadfastly trained on their respective prizes. Enter Patricia, a temperamental and woefully misunderstood local living alone in the dark, verdant woods, and desperate for connection. Through twists as unexpected as they are wildly entertaining, the self-absorbed cast and jaded crew each make her acquaintance atop the island’s tallest and most desolate peak, finding themselves at the center of an action-packed thriller that is far from scripted―and only a few will make the final cut. A whirlwind romp careening toward a last-girl-standing conclusion, and a scathing indictment of contemporary American media culture, Patricia Wants to Cuddle is also a love story: between star-crossed lesbians who rise above their intolerant town, a deeply ambivalent woman and her budding self-actualization, and a group of misfit islanders forging community against all odds.

Samantha Allen is a GLAAD Award-winning journalist and the author of Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States, which was a Lambda Literary Award finalist and won the Decatur Book Festival’s Judy Turner Award in 2019. She is also the author of Love & Estrogen, and the Audible Original M to (WT)F. Her journalistic work has been published widely by The New York Times, Rolling Stone, CNN and several other outlets. Prior to the release of Real Queer America, she worked as a senior reporter for The Daily Beast covering LGBTQ stories. Before that, she was staff writer for Fusion, where she won the 2018 GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism Article. In 2015, she received her Ph.D. in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies with a certificate in Psychoanalytic Studies from Emory University, where she received a George W. Woodruff Fellowship. While completing her dissertation, Samantha received the 2013 John Money Fellowship from the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University in Bloomington. Samantha currently lives with her wife Corey in Seattle.