The latest review of Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom is from Book Nut:

I needed something, after finishing The Woman in White, that was as far away from Victorian serialized novels as I could get. And, sorting through my piles of stuff, I came across this one. Which screams “not stuffy”. (Also “campy” and “not deep”, among other things.)

First off: how awesome is that title? Just saying it makes me grin… though I have to admit that I tend to say it in that movie-announcer voice: “DOC WILDE and the FROGS of DOOOOOOM!” Honestly: how much better can you get than frogs of doom? Not much.

That said, it totally and completely lived up to my campy expectations…It’s smart, enjoyable, campy fun. Perfect for a hot summer day (or a kid whose tastes tend toward the mutant…).

The full review is here. It’s pretty much a rave, she clearly enjoyed the book and is quite enthusiastic about it. She does use the term “campy” a lot, which hurts my soul a bit because as regular blog readers will know, I tend to not like campy things, and don’t consider Doc Wilde campy.

In my eyes, camp makes fun of its subjects, and I’m very serious (though also very playful) about the Wildes. As Alex Bledsoe at Guys Lit Wire wrote in his review, the book “while light-hearted, never turns to self-referential mockery.” But that’s a semantics issue (and actually a debate I had with my editor, so Melissa’s not alone in her definition of camp), and a minor one since she’s using the term in an enthusiastic way.

She also falls into the same “golden=blonde” trap that Tim Gabor, the cover artist, fell into:

You have a god of a Dad in Doc: a tall, muscular, blonde, intelligent, rich inventor who happens to Love his family and adventures…

Upon seeing the cover art, my son (the inspiration for Doc Wilde’s son, Brian) asked “When did we become blonde?” That’s because I described the Wildes thus:

They were all long-limbed and golden: golden brown hair, golden tans, and large eyes with glittering irises that seemed composed of layered gold leaf…

They have golden brown hair. Gary Chaloner got it right in his depictions of the Wildes, and in the real world, Jessica Alba’s hair and skin are about right for them:

But lots of folks are going to see gold and think yellow, so I figure I’m going to have to get used to that. ;)