Adele Morley is the pen name of a group of writers from Leeds and Bradford with a shared love of romantic fiction who joined forces to write a novel by committee for the 2011 Morley Literature Festival in Leeds, UK. The six women and one man, who barely knew each other at the start of the project, held a series of clandestine meetings to agree the main characters and plot, before dividing up the ten chapters amongst themselves. Each chapter was then written in isolation, with the entire collaboration only coming together at the very end of the editing process. Broken Shackles was written in the style of a classic Mills & Boon, in homage to the phenomenally successful UK publisher. The idea of a collaborative romantic writing project was conceived by Emma Bearman of northern cultural blog The Culture Vulture, who is a massive fan of the genre. The Leeds setting enabled the writers to celebrate the city they live and work in. The seven writers were: Emma Bearman, Jo Brandon, Dom Burch