Dark Companion

A new YA novel with obvious Jane Eyre parallels is published today, July 3:

Dark Companion
Marta Acosta
Tor Teen; First Edition edition (July 3, 2012)
ISBN-10: 0765329646
ISBN-13: 978-0765329646

Orphaned at the age of six, Jane Williams has grown up in a series of foster homes, learning to survive in the shadows of life. Through hard work and determination, she manages to win a scholarship to the exclusive Birch Grove Academy. There, for the first time, Jane finds herself accepted by a group of friends. She even starts tutoring the headmistress’s gorgeous son, Lucien. Things seem too good to be true.

They are.

The more she learns about Birch Grove’s recent past, the more Jane comes to suspect that there is something sinister going on. Why did the wife of a popular teacher kill herself? What happened to the former scholarship student, whose place Jane took? Why does Lucien’s brother, Jack, seem to dislike her so much?

As Jane begins to piece together the answers to the puzzle, she must find out why she was brought to Birch Grove—and what she would risk to stay there….

Reviews of the novel can be read on Love Vampires, ALPHA reader, The Compulsive Reader, Books By Their Cover, Kirkus Reviews, Nocturnal Book Reviews, Tiffany's Bookshelf, Ms. Martin Teaches Media, Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer, The Elliott Review, Bookish Whimsy, Starting the Next Chapter or Publishers Weekly:

Jane Williams, an orphaned 16-year-old living in urban foster care, animates a conventional YA plot--the outsider with secrets who relocates and is forced to face painful truths about who she is. Boarding schools and touches of the paranormal are common to this genre, and Jane makes the giant leap from her group home to privileged boarder at the all-girls Birch Grove Academy. Buttressing adult author Acosta's (the Casa Dracula series) YA debut are nods to the gothic tradition and Jane Eyre parallels that she encourages through epigraphs, character names, and the events that unfold. Her well-drawn characters shine--Jane especially, whose very nongothic life on the street makes for a gritty opening and influences the whole. Jack Radcliffe (the mountain-biking incarnation of Mr. Rochester) and Jane's clearly delineated classmates are vivid actors in the drama as well. Their strengths are masked somewhat by all the genre 
apparatus around them, but even so, Acosta's story is an impressive contender in the crowded YA paranormal field.

And only if you have read the book, here they are the Behind the Scenes Notes.

EDIT: Swoon Worthy Books interviews the author.