Breaking Free & The Genetic Revolution Series [OUT OF PRINT]
A Legacy Science Fiction Series by Alicia McCalla
Breaking Free was my debut novel and the beginning of the Genetic Revolution, an older YA/New Adult science fiction series about genetically enhanced humans, revolution, freedom, identity, and the forces determined to control them.
Originally published in 2012, Breaking Free introduced seventeen-year-old XJ Patterson, a genetically enhanced young woman caught between her desire for a normal life and a growing revolutionary movement.
The original edition of Breaking Free is now out of print and no longer available at retailers. The Genetic Revolution remains part of my creative history and official bibliography.
First Published: 2012
Genre: Science Fiction / Thriller
Audience: Older YA / New Adult
Series: Genetic Revolution
Status: Legacy Series (Original Edition Out of Print)
About Breaking Free
What if your mom was abducted?
What if the people who held her hostage wanted to erase her mind?
Seventeen-year-old XJ Patterson is genetically enhanced. So is her revolutionary mother, Dorothy.
CAGE (the Coalition to Assimilate Genetically Enhanced Persons) abducts Dorothy because she crossed the wrong person. XJ wants to rescue her mother, but she won't join the revolution to do it. If she becomes a revolutionary, she can't live a normal life.
And all she wants is to be normal.
Brandon Miller wants XJ to be his girlfriend. He doesn't care that she's poor and he's rich. He doesn't care that she's Black and he's white. But right now, his priority is convincing her to tell her story on Revolution TV.
Can he convince XJ in time to help her rescue Dorothy from the CAGE mind sweep?
Read a Sample
Although the original edition is no longer available for purchase, you can still read a sample of Breaking Free.
→ Read a Sample of Breaking Free [BookFunnel Sample]
The Story Behind Breaking Free
Breaking Free holds a deeply personal place in my creative history.
XJ's holographic grandfather was inspired by my own grandfather, whose struggle with Alzheimer's disease influenced the novel's exploration of memory, consciousness, identity, and what remains of us when memory begins to disappear.
Music became part of the storyworld, too.
My son, Asante, created an original theme song for XJ called “Keep Moving.” Long before I had language like immersive storyworld for what I was doing, I was already experimenting with ways for a fictional world to extend beyond the pages of a book.
Those connections make Breaking Free an important part of my personal and creative history, even though the original novel and Genetic Revolution series are no longer part of my active publishing catalog.
Breaking Free Theme Song: “Keep Moving”
My son, Asante, created the original Breaking Free theme song, “Keep Moving,” in 2012.
The song was originally released through music retailers alongside the novel but is no longer commercially available.
→Listen to “Keep Moving”
→ How Music Became Part of My Storyworld
The Genetic Revolution Series
Breaking Free was intended as the beginning of a larger Genetic Revolution series following XJ and a world of genetically enhanced people struggling against CAGE.
Additional books were planned, including Double Identity, but they were not ultimately published.
Today, Genetic Revolution is a legacy series rather than an active series.
I eventually made the creative decision to move away from writing for a younger audience and focus my current fiction on adult Black women navigating power, transformation, justice, and extraordinary circumstances.
Rather than attempting to retrofit Breaking Free into the fiction I write today, I've chosen to preserve it as part of the path that brought me here.
Recognition
Breaking Free was a 2014 AMB Ovation Award Winner.
The novel was also reviewed by Modern Griots.
→ Read the Modern Griots Review of Breaking Free
→ Breaking Free — AMB Ovation Award Winner
Looking for My Current Fiction?
My fiction has evolved considerably since Breaking Free was first published in 2012, but some things haven't changed.
I still write speculative stories centered on powerful Black women, extraordinary abilities, difficult choices, and battles over who gets to control their power.
Today, those ideas continue through my current storyworlds, including The Sentinel Superhero Vigilante Series.
→ Start Here: Explore My Current Fiction
→ Explore The Sentinel Superhero Vigilante Universe
→ Return to Legacy & Out of Print Series
Last updated: August 14, 2026