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Marianne Rabalais Sulser

Home Featured Authors & Panelists Featured Participant Lineup 2026 Marianne Rabalais Sulser

Marianne Rabalais Sulser is a Louisiana native living in Colorado, but she still likes to laissez les bon temps rouler with her husband and three occasionally well-behaved children. Her maternal ancestors were among the Acadians expelled from Nova Scotia in the 1750s. She brings this overlooked history vividly to life through fiction. When she is not writing, Sulser can usually be found in her garden, volunteering at Denver Botanic Gardens, or chauffeuring her kids to one of their many after-school activities.

 

 

Schedule

1:00 pm to 1:45 pm
Outside Museum, North Tent
Le Grand Dérangement: The Acadian Story in Fact and Fiction
Ryan U. Bernard, The Bernards of Louisiana: An Acadian Family History
Marianne Rabalais Sulser, Like Snow Before Sun
with moderator Rien Fertel

2:00 pm to 2:45 pm
Cavalier House Books Tent
Book Signing

Like Snow Before Sun

INSPIRED BY TRUE STORIES

Which will you sacrifice-the father that raised you, or the nation you adore?

Acadia, 1755. Jeanne LeJeune has always lived between worlds-the fierce daughter of a French merchant and a Mi'kmaw woman, she is torn between the quiet rhythms of village life and the wild heartbeats of her mother's people. But when her father is seized by English soldiers, her fragile peace shatters.

To win his freedom, Jeanne agrees to guide an English officer through the wilds of Nova Scotia-a choice that entangles her in the coming storm of war. What begins as a wary alliance soon becomes a journey fraught with danger, betrayal, and passion.

As the drums of conflict echo through the untamed heart of the forest, Jeanne must face an impossible choice: betray her heart to save her father or risk everything for the nation who shaped her soul.

Lush, romantic, and unflinching, Like Snow Before Sun captures a love tested by loyalty, loss, and the devastating cost of survival.

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"Well-researched and emotionally resonant historical fiction about survival and impossible choices...an absorbing page-turner." - Kirkus Reviews

"Weaving a story based on historical fact as well as the background of her own ancestors...readers will delight in Sulser's vivid descriptions of Nova Scotia's landscapes, where forests come alive with the whispers of the Mi'kmaq ancestors...[a] sweeping depiction of love, sacrifice, and betrayal in 18th-century Nova Scotia." - BookLife Reviews