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Verdict: A warm English-village butch/femme romance with a genuinely original heroine — a leather-jacketed lesbian vicar who is also a retired domme — undercut by a pet name used so often that it became the book’s most-cited complaint.
Best for: Readers who want a femme top and a cocky butch who learns to kneel, a grief story with real faith-versus-atheism argument in it, and a whole village cheering from the pews, and who can shrug off light D/s and a lot of repetition.
Heat level: ★★★★☆ (4/5 — explicit, with light D/s; romance.io has no steam rating yet)
Rating: ★★★★☆ (3.8/5 — a 4.08 Goodreads average across 646 ratings, with a femme-top dynamic that splits readers down the middle)
Tropes: Butch/femme, femme top and butch bottom, opposites attract, vicar and atheist, grief and healing, celebrity in hiding, age gap, English village, dual POV, found community.
Charming the Vicar by Jenny Frame is the second book in Bold Strokes Books’ Axedale series, a contemporary lesbian romance published in January 2018 and set in a Kent village where everyone knows everyone — and the collision at its centre is Finn Kane, a world-famous stage magician and professional debunker of faith healers, hiding from the press after her sister’s death, running into the Reverend Bridget Claremont, the openly gay vicar who has decided that Finn is her newest lost sheep.
It holds a 4.08 average across 646 Goodreads ratings and 3.75 on StoryGraph. Three-quarters of Goodreads raters give it four or five stars. The ones who don’t are remarkably consistent about why — and that reason is worth knowing before you start.
What Is Charming the Vicar About?
Charming the Vicar is a small-town lesbian romance in the English register: a parish church, a manor house, a village fete’s worth of busybodies, and one conservative parishioner who objects to a woman in the pulpit and a woman in the manor alike. It is also an opposites-attract story built on an argument — faith against atheism — and a grief novel in which loss is the engine rather than the backstory.
Finn is 27, famous, arrogant, and hollowed out; she spent her career exposing religious frauds and now badly wants to believe her sister is somewhere better. Bridget, ten years older, is warm, adored by her flock and entirely certain that Finn isn’t her type. What she hasn’t told the village is that she used to be Mistress Black. The book alternates between the two points of view, and that dual structure is what lets the D/s thread read as a reckoning for Bridget rather than simply a kink for Finn.
What Makes This Butch/Femme Village Romance Work
- Bridget as a vicar: Readers who loved the book almost always start here. A femme priest in heels, red lipstick and a biker jacket who fights her own bishop for LGBT clergy is a heroine the genre doesn’t have many of, and the Good, the Bad and the Unread gave the book an A largely on her account.
- A femme top with a butch bottom: The Lesbian Review’s reviewers singled out Bridget topping Finn, in and out of the bedroom, as proof that Frame’s butch/femme pairings never repeat themselves.
- Grief with a spine: Finn’s arc — through anger, painting and back to small, close-up magic — is the part even lukewarm reviewers praise.
- Axedale itself: The village and its returning cast, especially the farmer Quade, keep readers there.
- The church politics: One five-star reviewer says the Church of England’s fight over LGBT acceptance is put in human terms, and the homophobic bishop gives the romance a real external stake.
Book Synopsis
Finn Kane has built a career on proving that nothing is real. Stadium illusions, televised exposés of psychics and preachers, a reputation as the world’s most confident atheist — all of it rooted in the televangelist father she and her sister fled as teenagers. Then her sister falls ill, and dies frightened of what comes next, and Finn discovers she has nothing to say to that fear. She cancels every show and rents a cottage in a Kent village nobody would think to look for her in.
The first person to knock is the vicar. Bridget Claremont is local gentry, best friend to the countess at the manor, openly lesbian and determined to help anyone who is hurting. Finn tells her she is gay and an atheist and slams the door. Bridget, unbothered, keeps coming back — with conversation, with challenges, with the kind of certainty that gets under Finn’s skin in more ways than one.
Bridget has her own reasons to keep her distance. Her bishop is looking for an excuse, at least one parishioner already resents her, and the woman she was before ordination — the one who went by Mistress Black — is someone she has spent years keeping locked away. Finn, of all people, seems to see straight through the dog collar to her. Whether the magician can find something to believe in again, and whether the vicar can let herself be all of who she is, is the question the rest of the book sets out to answer.
My Review
Bridget is the reason to read this, and she is a genuinely original romance heroine. A vicar who loves God and her parishioners without apology, who is also a femme top with a past, and who is written as one coherent woman rather than a saint with a secret — that is a bold character for 2018 lesfic, and Frame commits to it. The faith-versus-atheism sparring works because neither woman is a straw figure.
The second strength is Finn’s grief. Her sister’s death is not a device to make her sad and available; it drives her choices, her cruelty and eventually her recovery, and the way she finds her way back to magic — the small, personal kind rather than the stadium kind — is the most moving thread in the book.
Where it struggles is repetition, and this is not one reader’s pet peeve — it is the most repeated criticism in the reviews. Bridget calls Finn “boy,” and she calls her it constantly; one early reviewer counted 103 uses, and at least four others independently name it as the thing that pulled them out of the book, with one saying it made her cringe every time. Around that sits the second theme: readers who met Bridget in book one found a different woman here, and several describe her as demeaning Finn rather than playfully topping her. A smaller group never felt the chemistry.
One expectation to reset: the blurb sells a gentle, charming village romance, and it is one — until the bedroom door opens. The D/s is light by any kink-romance standard, and The Lesbian Review’s reviewers actually wanted more of it, but the language in the sex scenes is not sweet. If the cosy cover drew you, calibrate; if the word “Mistress” worried you, relax — this is power play with a dog collar joke, not a BDSM novel.
My honest note: A four-star heroine in a book that leans on one word far too hard. If a repeated pet name or a femme who puts her butch in her place will grate on you, it will grate for 250 pages. If it won’t, Bridget, Finn and Axedale make this one of the more distinctive butch/femme romances of its year.
| Element | In Charming the Vicar |
|---|---|
| Central relationship | Finn Kane & Bridget Claremont — grieving butch magician and femme-top vicar, opposites attract |
| Core tropes | Butch/femme, femme top, faith vs atheism, grief and healing, celebrity in hiding, age gap |
| Setting | Axedale, a village in Kent — the parish church, the manor and a cottage rented under the radar |
| Heat level | 4/5 — explicit, with light D/s and power play |
| Series | Axedale book 2 of 3 — new couple, readable on its own; book 1 adds context |
| Content notes | Explicit sexual content with light D/s and degrading pet names, homophobia and religious bigotry, death of a sibling from cancer, grief, a car accident, an abusive and fraudulent parent in backstory |
How Spicy Is Charming the Vicar?
A 4/5, with a caveat about where that number comes from. romance.io carries the book but has no steam rating for it yet — it has only seven ratings there, and the one clear signal is a BDSM tag — so the band here is derived from readers and the StoryGraph community, which lists sexual content as graphic. Readers call it steamy, explosive, and in one case the sexiest book she had read in a long time. The seduction takes its time, but the heat is a draw.
The element worth knowing in advance is the power dynamic. Bridget tops, Finn submits, the language in the scenes carries a hard edge that one reviewer found at odds with an otherwise sweet romance, and the Lesbrary review warns that some terms may be hard for dysphoric readers. No reviewer I found flags anything beyond that. For the same heat band, The Butch and the Beautiful also puts a confident femme in charge, and Frame’s own Hunger for You sits at 4/5 too.
Who Should Read This Book?
You’ll likely love it if: you want a femme who leads and a butch who melts, you like your romance with real grief and real theological argument in it, you enjoy English village settings with a large returning cast, and you like a book that feels like a warm series instalment.
You may want to skip it if: repeated pet names or verbal tics pull you out of a story, D/s language in sex scenes is a hard no, you need a slow build of chemistry you can feel on the page, or you loved book-one Bridget and want her unchanged.
In short: one of the genre’s most distinctive heroines, in a book whose single stylistic habit will either charm you or drive you up the wall.
What Readers Are Actually Saying (September 2026)
There is no viral moment here, and nothing new driving the book in 2026. What it had was a well-covered release: NetGalley review copies sent out through Bold Strokes, an A from the blog the Good, the Bad and the Unread, four stars and a favourite-Frame verdict from the Lesbrary, and a joint audiobook review and video from The Lesbian Review. Since then it has accumulated quietly, much of it through audio. The audiobook, narrated by Nicola Victoria Vincent and running 7 hours 49 minutes, came out alongside the ebook in January 2018, and The Lesbian Review calls the pairing one of its favourite narrator–author combinations. The spread is healthy — 41% five stars, 33% four, 18% three, and only 6% at one or two — but the three-star and two-star reviews keep returning to the same few complaints.
Why readers love it (according to the discourse): Bridget, first and loudest — “unconventional” is the recurring word, and fans love that a woman of God can be a femme top in red lipstick without the book treating it as a contradiction. Second, the butch/femme dynamic itself; several readers say it is exactly why they read Frame, and one notes that none of her pairings are the same. Third, Axedale and its people, with Quade the most-requested secondary character on the page. StoryGraph’s community tags it lighthearted, emotional and hopeful. The narration gets its own praise: one listener says Vincent’s voice for Mistress Black nearly brought her to her knees.
What readers argue about and complain about: The word “boy,” above everything. Five independent reviewers name it — one counted 103 uses, another notes it is “boy” rather than “boi,” and another says it made her cringe every time. The second theme is Bridget’s shift from book one: readers who liked her in book one describe this Bridget as having a split personality, caring for her flock while putting Finn down. Third: chemistry. A handful of readers, including some who liked both women, say they never felt the romance. Beyond that, a couple of reviewers found the middle dragged. The genuine split is the D/s — some readers wanted more of it, some skipped the sex scenes entirely, and one reviewer thought it sat awkwardly in what is otherwise a sweet romance.
The series question worth asking first: You don’t need book one. Several reviewers read this without Courting the Countess (3.99 across 889 ratings) and say the story is self-contained; a few fans still recommend reading in order. The good news is that the series finishes stronger: Wooing the Farmer (2019), the third and final Axedale book, gives Quade her turn and averages 4.09 across 555 ratings — the highest of the three. If you finish this one wanting more of the village, that is where to go.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Charming the Vicar a butch/femme romance?
Yes. Finn is a butch magician and Bridget is a femme vicar, and the book’s whole dynamic is built on it, with the femme as the top. Goodreads readers shelve it as butch/femme and several reviews single the pairing out as the main draw.
How spicy is Charming the Vicar?
A 4/5. The sex scenes are explicit and include light D/s and power play, with Bridget in charge. romance.io has no steam rating for it yet, so that number comes from reader reviews and StoryGraph’s graphic content warning.
Do I need to read Courting the Countess first?
No. Reviewers who started here say the story stands on its own. Book one introduces Bridget, Quade and the village, so reading in order adds context but nothing essential.
Does Charming the Vicar have a happy ending?
Yes. Finn and Bridget end up together and the conflict with the church is resolved, and reviewers describe a satisfying, neatly tied-off finish. The only complaint is that it may be a little too neat.
Is there an audiobook?
Yes. It is narrated by Nicola Victoria Vincent and runs 7 hours 49 minutes. The narration is widely praised, and at least one reader says outright that this is a book to hear.
If You Loved Charming the Vicar, Read These Next
If the femme-top dynamic is what hooked you, Wicked Fem by Edie Marr turns it all the way up — a bi femme domme and a soft butch sub, in Brighton rather than Kent, at full kink intensity. For the same confident femme and a funnier butch narrator, The Butch and the Beautiful is the closest match in tone and heat. And if it was the grief and the small-town healing that landed, Butch Girls Can Fix Anything gives you a grieving butch, a found-family town and a gentler touch.
For more in this register, browse our butch/femme lesbian romance guide or the full Book Reviews collection.
The Bottom Line
Charming the Vicar is a village romance with a genuinely surprising heart. Bridget is one of the most original femme heroines in the genre, Finn’s grief gives the book real weight, and Axedale is the kind of place readers want to go back to. It also leans on one pet name until readers start counting, rewrites a beloved side character in a way that divides her fans, and asks some readers to take the chemistry on faith. If a femme who calls the shots is what you’re after, few books do it with more warmth. Check Charming the Vicar on Amazon →
The Eikna Overall Ranking
On the Eikna scale, Charming the Vicar ranks as a distinctive traditionally published butch/femme village romance — warm, original and genuinely steamy, held back by repetition and a divisive power dynamic, and best approached for Bridget and Axedale rather than for a slow-building chemistry.
The Evidence Scorecard
Overall ★★★★☆ 3.8/5
- ✓ 4.08 average across 646 Goodreads ratings
- ✓ 74% of Goodreads ratings at four or five stars
- ✓ An A from the Good, the Bad and the Unread
- ✓ 3.75 on StoryGraph, below the Goodreads number
Romance ★★★★☆ 3.7/5
- ✓ Faith-versus-atheism sparring gives it friction
- ✓ Femme-top dynamic rarely seen in the genre
- ✓ Seduction takes its time and pays off
- ✓ Several readers never felt the chemistry
Characters ★★★★☆ 4/5
- ✓ Bridget is the most-praised element
- ✓ Finn’s grief arc lands with most readers
- ✓ Quade and the village cast readers adore
- ✓ Book-one fans say Bridget changed too much
Writing ★★★★☆ 3.6/5
- ✓ Several readers call the prose well written
- ✓ Dual POV used well for both leads
- ✓ Scripture woven in with care
- ✓ “Boy” counted at 103 uses by one reviewer
Emotional Impact ★★★★☆ 3.9/5
- ✓ Sister’s death drives the whole story
- ✓ Return to small magic moves readers
- ✓ Church homophobia gives real stakes
- ✓ Ending resolves some weight too neatly
Heat Level ★★★★☆ 4/5
- ✓ StoryGraph flags sexual content as graphic
- ✓ Readers call it steamy and explosive
- ✓ Light D/s with the femme in charge
- ✓ No romance.io steam rating yet
Ending ★★★★☆ 4/5
- ✓ The couple end together
- ✓ Church conflict resolved on Bridget’s merits
- ✓ Self-contained, no cliffhanger
- ✓ One reviewer found the bow too pretty
Re-read Value ★★★★☆ 3.9/5
- ✓ Audiobook narration widely praised
- ✓ Readers report rereading and relistening
- ✓ Book 3 rates highest and returns to Axedale
- ✓ The repeated pet name grates for some readers
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