We'd like to address questions about the appearance of a character in one of our designs.  We extend a sincere apology to those of Japanese and Anglo-European ethnicity for offense caused by the depiction of Shane's character.

For the character brief, we provided the description directly from all versions of Heated Rivalry we've read, along with reference photos that corroborated the author's description.  All reference images included people known to us and/or purported to be Japanese or Japanese and Anglo-European.  No community exists as a monolith so a range of options were provided.  We proceeded with an approved option.  The influence of the reference photos is clearer in the depiction of the character on the dust jacket for The Long Game. While we do not want to encourage any stereotypes or classifications solely based on facial features and structures, we can acknowledge that in profile, that influence can be lost.  

We acknowledge that despite approval, to our knowledge, no one involved in this project is of Japanese and Anglo-European mixed ethnicity, meaning we are not in a position to make that determination.  We apologize for taking that decision from the community most appropriate to make it.  Going forward, we will be more responsible when representing identities that we do not hold by consulting with and listening to those voices.