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Verdict: A funny, filthy and genuinely unusual butch/femme BDSM romance — a soft butch sub and a bi femme domme finding each other in Brighton — held back by editing that even its fans complain about and a romance that too many readers say gets buried under the scenes.
Best for: Readers who actively want femme-dom kink with humiliation play, a chubby, anxious butch on her knees and a British comic voice, and who can forgive typos and a light plot in exchange for heat and chemistry.
Heat level: ★★★★★ (5/5 — explicit and plentiful; no romance.io entry, rated from the author’s own billing and reader reports)
Rating: ★★★★☆ (3.6/5 — a 4.08 Goodreads average across 99 ratings, with a steady minority calling it erotica rather than romance)
Tropes: Butch/femme, femme domme and butch sub, first sapphic relationship, bisexual awakening, opposites attract, meet-cute in a supermarket, humiliation kink, recently heartbroken heroine, found and lost and found again, British rom-com.
Wicked Fem by Edie Marr is the self-published 2021 debut that opens the Kiss Me Quick series, an explicit contemporary lesbian romance set in Brighton — and the collision at its centre is Pix, a chubby, scruffy, recently heartbroken butch who has always wanted to kneel for a woman like this, running into Lois, a polished, commanding femme who has never been with a woman at all.
It holds a 4.08 average across 99 Goodreads ratings and 4.3 stars from 116 Amazon ratings, with no trade reviews, no blog coverage we could find and no audiobook. Three quarters of Goodreads raters give it four or five stars. The other quarter are not grumbling about details; they are arguing about what kind of book it is. That argument is the thing worth understanding before you start.
What Is Wicked Fem About?
Wicked Fem is a butch/femme romance first and a BDSM book a very close second — Goodreads readers shelve it under Erotica and BDSM as readily as Lesbian Romance. The kink is not a spice note on top of a rom-com; it is the engine, and power exchange is how these two women learn each other. Brighton, the UK’s queer seaside city, gives it a lived-in backdrop of bars, bus stops and supermarket aisles.
Pix is the book’s heart and its main narrator, telling her side in a rattling, self-deprecating first person that is the author’s biggest asset. She lacks confidence in almost everything except what she wants. Lois assumes she knows exactly what she is doing — and in a dungeon she mostly does — but she has never dated a woman. One reviewer notes that Pix narrates in first person while Lois’s chapters sit in third, which gives Lois some distance and keeps the reader inside Pix’s nerves.
What Makes This Butch/Femme BDSM Romance Work
- A butch sub: Readers keep pointing out how unusual the dynamic is. Here the soft butch is the submissive and the bi femme holds the power, and fans say that inversion is exactly the draw.
- The voice: Pix’s narration is funny, anxious and extremely British. Even a four-star reader who found the romance abbreviated says, in effect, that this author has a real voice.
- Chemistry out of the dungeon: The recurring praise from fans is that Pix and Lois are cute and funny together, not only hot. Reviewers describe the relationship as sweet as often as they describe it as steamy.
- Kink written from inside: An early reader quoted in the book’s own description praised it for describing experiences queer women rarely see on the page, including the discomfort of being a queer woman around straight male doms in kink spaces.
- No manufactured misunderstanding: At least one five-star reader singles out that the plot moves without the usual contrived miscommunication — which, given how much else is going on, is a relief.
Book Synopsis
Pix is not having a good year. Her heart has just been broken, she is short on confidence, and the fantasy she has carried for years — a glamorous, exacting femme who would take complete charge of her — has never come close to walking into her life. Then, in the middle of an ordinary grocery run, it does. The woman in the aisle is immaculate, amused and entirely out of Pix’s league, and Pix is too starstruck to string a sentence together.
Lois is used to being in control. She knows the dominant side of a scene and she knows exactly what she likes. What she has never done is take a woman home. Pix, flustered and determined, sets out to find the woman from the supermarket again, and when she does, the attraction is instant on both sides.
What follows is an education in both directions. Pix has wanted this forever and has no idea whether she can handle the real thing. Lois can run a scene in her sleep but is new to loving a woman. As the games get more intense and the feelings get harder to hide, the question is whether a fantasy made flesh can survive being a relationship — and whether either of them is brave enough to ask for the part that happens outside the bedroom.
My Review
The premise is the best thing here, and it is braver than most of the genre. A butch/femme romance that puts the femme in charge and the butch on her knees, and plays it for comedy and heat without apologising for either, fills a gap readers clearly feel — the reviews that love it love it because nobody else is writing this pairing this way. Making Pix chubby, nervous and delighted to be told what to do gives it a warmth much BDSM romance lacks.
The second strength is Pix’s voice. The published excerpt is a single breathless sentence about Lois letting her hair down that ends with Pix declaring herself killed twice over, and that register — a butch narrating her own helplessness with running jokes — carries the book. When it works, the humour and the heat feed each other rather than taking turns.
Where it struggles is balance, and this is the dominant complaint rather than a personal gripe. Across independent reviews, readers say the book is mostly sex with a romance threaded through it — one two-star reviewer puts the split at 85 to 15, a three-star reader says there is no substance beyond the scenes, and a one-star reader calls it sapphic erotica rather than sapphic romance. The second theme is editing: readers who gave it five stars mention grammatical errors and say it needed a copy editor, and a 2025 two-star review says it reads like a first draft, with missing punctuation and words. Third, at least two readers object that limits and safewords are never negotiated on the page before the power exchange starts.
One expectation to reset: the cover copy sells a feel-good British rom-com, and that is true of the tone, but the content is sustained humiliation play, boot worship, spanking and dungeon scenes. If “rom-com” is what drew you, calibrate hard; if “kinky” is what drew you, this is one of the most committed femme-dom books in the category.
My honest note: A genuinely rare dynamic written with real voice and real heat, sold short by thin plotting and an edit it never got. If you need the romance to lead and the scenes to follow, this will feel like the wrong book. If a funny, submissive butch and her glamorous domme is exactly the fantasy, you will forgive a lot.
| Element | In Wicked Fem |
|---|---|
| Central relationship | Pix & Lois — chubby, scruffy submissive butch and polished bisexual dominant femme |
| Core tropes | Butch/femme, femme domme and butch sub, first sapphic relationship, opposites attract, supermarket meet-cute, humiliation kink |
| Setting | Brighton, England — cocktail bars, bus stops, supermarket aisles and the local kink scene |
| Heat level | 5/5 — explicit and frequent BDSM scenes |
| Series | Kiss Me Quick book 1 — Pix and Lois’s story; books 2 and 3 follow different couples |
| Content notes | Explicit sexual content, humiliation and degradation play, boot licking, spanking, voyeurism, BDSM without on-page limit negotiation, recent breakup, discomfort around straight male doms in kink spaces |
How Spicy Is Wicked Fem?
A 5/5. romance.io does not list this book, so the number comes from two other sources: the author’s own description of “searing hot kinky sex scenes,” and reader reports that agree almost unanimously that the scenes are the bulk of the page count. Goodreads readers shelve it as Erotica and BDSM, and the critics make the same point from the other side. Nobody comes away thinking the heat was oversold.
The element worth knowing in advance is the kind of kink, not the quantity: this is humiliation-forward femme-dom, including boot licking, and one reader notes that the dom/sub dynamic reaches beyond the bedroom into the rest of the relationship. At least two readers were bothered that boundaries are never discussed on the page; one fan warns it is an exaggerated fantasy, not a manual. No reviewer I found flags anything beyond that. For femme-dom at the same heat, At Her Service is the consent-forward counterpoint, and Lady Venom Takes a Mistress gives you a commanding femme in a gothic register.
Who Should Read This Book?
You’ll likely love it if: you want a submissive butch and a dominant femme, humiliation and service kink are a draw rather than a hard limit, you like a self-deprecating British narrator with jokes in every paragraph, and heat matters more to you than plot.
You may want to skip it if: you need a romance-led story with the sex as seasoning, humiliation or degradation play is not for you, you expect on-page negotiation and safewords in any BDSM book, or typos and missing words pull you out of a story.
In short: a rare butch-sub, femme-domme fantasy delivered with wit and heat, on an unpolished page with a thin plot underneath.
What Readers Are Actually Saying (September 2026)
This is a quiet book. There is no viral moment, no trade coverage, no blog reviews that we could find, no romance.io listing and no audiobook, and the whole conversation lives in 16 Goodreads reviews and eleven visible Amazon reviews. What keeps it moving is the series. Two reviewers say they read it through Kindle Unlimited, a paperback edition has since joined the $3.99 ebook, and the three Kiss Me Quick books sit within twenty ratings of each other, which suggests readers are working through the set. The Goodreads split is worth stating plainly: 41% five stars, 34% four, 16% three and 8% one or two. Amazon runs higher, as it always does, at 4.3 with 86% four or five stars. StoryGraph lists it with too few reviews to show community stats, tagging it only emotional, lighthearted and medium-paced.
Why readers love it (according to the discourse): The dynamic first. Reviewers keep flagging a butch sub with a femme bi domme as unusual, and those who wanted that pairing say it delivers exactly what it promises. Second, the couple: “cute,” “funny” and “sweet” recur alongside “hot,” and one fan says it is impossible not to be delighted that they found each other. Third, the writing voice, which even critical readers credit — a reader who found the romance abbreviated praised the author’s voice outright, and a four-star reviewer who disliked the amount of humiliation still said the book was written so well it deserves its audience.
What readers argue about and complain about: Romance versus erotica, above everything. It is the single most repeated criticism across the reviews: readers at one, two and three stars all say the relationship is built around the sex rather than the other way round, and that the love is hard to believe; one three-star reader says even the ending left her flat. Editing is the second theme, and it cuts across ratings — five-star readers mention grammatical errors and a need for a copy editor, one two-star reader counted the word “like” hundreds of times before giving up, and another says it reads like an amateur first draft. Third: consent framing. Two readers object that no safewords, limits or preferences are discussed before the dynamic starts, and one found the lead’s constant degradation more sad than sexy. One reader found parts of it fetishising, and at least two DNF’d or nearly did. The genuine split is over intensity: the same boot-licking scenes that one reader calls delicious, another calls too much.
The series question worth asking first: Wicked Fem is Pix and Lois’s book, and the later Kiss Me Quick titles follow other couples, so you can stop here. The series holds up on the numbers. Cursed (book 2), about a dumped woman who may or may not have cursed her ex, averages 3.79 across 92 ratings; Playing House (book 3), an exes-and-inherited-cottage story, matches this one at 4.08 across 90. Marr’s most-read book, the fantasy Prisoner of the Witch Queen, sits more than half a star lower at 3.53 across 333 ratings, so if this one worked for you, the contemporary series is the better next step.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Wicked Fem have a happy ending?
Yes, as far as every source shows. The author’s own copy describes love found, lost and found again, a fan says she was delighted for Pix and Lois to find each other, and no reviewer reports a cliffhanger. One three-star reader found the ending emotionally flat.
How spicy is Wicked Fem?
A 5/5. romance.io has no entry, but the author bills it as searing hot and kinky, Goodreads readers shelve it as erotica and BDSM, and reviewers agree the scenes make up most of the book.
Is Wicked Fem a butch/femme romance?
Yes. Pix is a butch lesbian and Lois is a bisexual femme, and the author markets it as butch/femme. Unusually, the butch is the submissive and the femme is the domme.
Do I need to read the Kiss Me Quick books in order?
No. Wicked Fem is book 1 and tells Pix and Lois’s complete story. Cursed and Playing House follow different couples.
Is there an audiobook of Wicked Fem?
Not that I could find. Amazon lists only Kindle and paperback editions, and Libro.fm does not stock it.
If You Loved Wicked Fem, Read These Next
For a femme-dom romance that puts negotiation on the page and makes it part of the heat, At Her Service is the closest match at the same 5/5 level. If it was the butch/femme banter that won you over, Three Reasons to Say Yes is a warm, funny and genuinely hot butch/femme romance with a far fuller plot. And for another patient femdom story with more romance around the power exchange, try Being Hers.
For more in this register, browse our butch/femme lesbian romance guide or the full Book Reviews collection.
The Bottom Line
Wicked Fem sets out to write the butch/femme fantasy the genre rarely touches — the femme on top, the butch on her knees, and both of them laughing. The dynamic is rare, Pix’s voice is genuinely funny, and the heat is exactly as advertised. It is also thin on plot, carries an edit even its fans notice, and leaves a real share of readers feeling they read erotica with a romance attached. Whether that trade works depends on why you are here — but if a submissive butch and a glamorous domme is the book you have been looking for, it is worth the evening. Check Wicked Fem on Amazon →
The Eikna Overall Ranking
On the Eikna scale, Wicked Fem ranks as a rare and committed indie butch/femme BDSM romance — funny, hot and genuinely unusual, held back by thin plotting and rough editing, and best approached for the femme-dom fantasy rather than for a fully built love story.
The Evidence Scorecard
Overall ★★★★☆ 3.6/5
- ✓ 4.08 average across 99 Goodreads ratings
- ✓ 4.3 stars from 116 Amazon ratings
- ✓ 75% of Goodreads ratings at four or five
- ✓ Erotica-not-romance is the repeated complaint
Romance ★★★☆☆ 3.4/5
- ✓ Rare butch sub, femme domme pairing
- ✓ Fans call the couple sweet and funny
- ✓ No manufactured misunderstanding
- ✓ Several readers never believed the love
Characters ★★★★☆ 3.8/5
- ✓ Chubby, anxious butch narrator readers adore
- ✓ Lois confident and vulnerable by turns
- ✓ Bi heroine’s first relationship with a woman
- ✓ One reader wanted far more depth
Writing ★★★☆☆ 3.2/5
- ✓ Funny, distinctive British first-person voice
- ✓ Critics still say it is written well
- ✓ Mixed first- and third-person POV
- ✓ Typos flagged even in five-star reviews
Emotional Impact ★★★☆☆ 3.3/5
- ✓ Pix’s longing lands through the comedy
- ✓ Kink written from a queer perspective
- ✓ StoryGraph tags it emotional and lighthearted
- ✓ Readers found little substance beyond sex
Heat Level ★★★★★ 5/5
- ✓ Author bills searing hot kinky scenes
- ✓ Shelved as erotica and BDSM on Goodreads
- ✓ Scenes are most of the page count
- ✓ No on-page limit negotiation, two readers note
Ending ★★★★☆ 3.8/5
- ✓ Pix and Lois end together
- ✓ No cliffhanger reported by any reviewer
- ✓ Sequels follow different couples
- ✓ One reader found it emotionally flat
Re-read Value ★★★★☆ 3.7/5
- ✓ One fan plans to reread the hottest chapters
- ✓ One KU reader plans to buy a permanent copy
- ✓ Two more series books at 3.79 and 4.08
- ✓ No audiobook for a second pass
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