Lament Academy is a place for the forgotten, the troubled, the unwanted. Abby never wanted to be here, but she wasn’t given a choice. The halls are cold, the whispers never stop, and something about this place feels wrong.
Her roommate, Raven, listens to the floorboards like they might answer. The other students watch her like they know something she doesn’t. And Ethan… Ethan looks at her like he’s waiting for her to remember something she’s long forgotten.
But the longer Abby stays at Lament, the more the lines between dreams and reality blur. Shadows stretch where they shouldn’t. Time slips through her fingers. And the whispers—soft, familiar, unrelenting—keep calling her name.
Something is keeping her here.
And it won’t let her go.
AMAZON REVIEW
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Lament Academy" – Where Trauma Meets Trigonometry
Reviewed in the United States on June 30, 2025
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
Here’s the thing about being invisible: you see everything. Unfortunately, so does the school administration, and they only seem to care when you’re skipping class—not when a football coach is creeping on you. Welcome to Jefferson High School in scenic Millfield, Georgia, where the cafeteria food is bland but the gaslighting is gourmet.
Abigail Winters, our wonderfully broody heroine, has the temperament of Carrie on prom night and the emotional range of every sad indie playlist on Spotify. Her home life? A feel-good Hallmark movie—if Hallmark specialized in deadbeat dads and alcoholic moms who can't find the parenting manual.
When her bestie Ellie blows the whistle on Coach Danvers and his very "not okay" attention toward Abigail, you’d think justice would prevail. Nope! Abigail gets punished like it’s her fault and is shipped off to Lament Academy, which, honestly, sounds like a rejected title for a My Chemical Romance album.
Lament is a reform school—or as the school board likes to call it, “an opportunity for growth through mandatory misery.” It's run by Mrs. Hargrove, a woman so cold and sharp she could slice diamonds with her side-eye. Also, she teaches Geometry, because nothing says "healing trauma" like calculating the hypotenuse under emotional duress.
But wait—it gets dreamy. Enter Ethan: British, brooding, and intense in a way that screams "definitely has secrets" and "might be a dangerous entity but we’re not saying it." Naturally, Abigail starts to rethink this whole tragic teen exile thing.
Then there’s Mr. Aldric, the Gothic lit teacher who’s less "Tenured Educator" and more "Byronic fever dream in a tweed jacket." Honestly, every adult at this school seems to be harboring either a dark past or a side hustle in dramatic monologues.
As Abigail uncovers more about the eerie halls of Lament—complete with whispers, possible curses, and emotionally unavailable eye candy—she must decide whether to break the mystery wide open or just vibe dramatically in a window with rain streaming down the glass.
Verdict: Come for the psychological trauma, stay for the atmospheric furniture descriptions. If you love haunted schools, moody protagonists, and authority figures who desperately need HR training, Lament Academy is your next obsession.
AMAZON REVIEW
5.0 out of 5 stars
A First-Class Creepy Read
Reviewed in the United States on July 1, 2025
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
Abigail’s Curse (by June Calva), despite its eye-catching and suggestive cover image, isn’t a mere goth romance for teens or young adults. It’s a gripping gem of a modern-day Gothic novel and quite the page turner. The excellent writing — virtually every incisively worded sentence worthy of savoring — draws the reader in and won’t let go. All is rendered palpably moody as the story explores the mind and circumstances of an abused and troubled small-town high school girl who finds herself flung into strange new surroundings. The book could easily double as a masterclass text on compellingly descriptive, yet understated, writing and the subtleties of exquisite mood building, with practically every paragraph worthy of study and comment. The reader almost forgets to care about where the story, which at times may drift into the implausible, is going with the wonderful word crafting leading the way. From a guy who doesn’t normally delve into the Gothic genre, this one is well worth the read.