A Goodreads user asked Shannon Messenger:

Hey, me again. I have two more questions for you (sorry if it gets kind of annoying) : 1. Is it a coincidence that you have blonde hair and brown eyes like Sophie? 2. How do you come up with last names?

Shannon Messenger It actually IS a coincidence that Sophie and I have a similar appearance. Her hair color came automatically, because the idea was originally inspired by my love of Legolas from LOTR. And the eye color was a very specific choice because I wanted her to have something unique about her appearance--something some characters would find interesting, and others would find unappealing. And because I knew some characters would find it unappealing, I wanted to stray away from anything that could unintentionally be associated with race (think of how it might read if certain characters were calling Sophie a "freak" because of her hair being different, or her skin color. That's *never* a message I would want to include in my books--even from mean, unlikeable characters). So while its still never nice to call someone names for anything about their appearance, eye color felt less easily misunderstood than other things. And since the standard lore for elves often gives them blue eyes, I decided to have that be their norm, and give Sophie brown eyes to differentiate.

For their last names, I usually invent those either using words or pieces of words from all kinds of different languages (not always english) until I find something that has the right "feel."

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