Title: The Pale-Eyed Mage
Author: Jennifer Ealey
Date: 2022
Publisher: Next Chapter
Quote: "The pupils are black and the irises a very pale lavender...hmm...but they look white."
In a magical kingdom, in some alternative world where the landscape resembles Australia, a little boy called Jayhan is born with albinism expressed only in his eyes. This gives him a resemblance to a legendary ancestor of his who sounds awful, and causes him to be both feared and taunted, as a child. Nevertheless, he shows premature compassion toward another little boy who is being abused by an adult, and this starts a chain of events that are plausible only in magical kingdoms and lead to Jayhan's discovering and restoring an exiled Queen to her realm. Jayhan will go far. There will be sequels.
Partly it's the Australia-like setting that makes this modern fairy tale seem fresh. I found it entertaining, despite a lot of distractions from the Internet going in and out with rain that's reached dangerous levels while a cat whose grumpiness was a relief from a previous mood of hopeless passivity, but was still very grumpy, was occupying my knees. (I'm reading fiction but I'm actually watching for flood updates from Clinchport.) A real fantasy fiction fan is likely to buy the sequels.
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