The festive season is not for sissies. Pressures of gift-giving, invitations or lack of, family dynamics, expenses, cold weather and bugs – even existential crises triggered by a life-size Santa and his reindeers landing in a certain Hastings shop. Our options?  Celebrate, reluctantly surrender, or enter a Scrooge-like state of denial.

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Capturing the lonely side of Christmas, Helen Jacey’s detective novel Chipped Pearls features ex-con Elvira Slate facing her first Holidays ‘on the outs’ after four years in jail. No family, no invitations, and a malingering sense of shame, her defence mechanism is Scrooge-mode. The upside? Her secret affair with an inappropriate lover. It’s the 1940s after all, when loving freely isn’t an option for many people.

These same themes are explored in Jacey’s single My Particular Guy, the ‘soundtrack’ for Chipped Pearls. It celebrates loving who you want, even if society or even your conscience frowns and forbids. Jacey writes and produces a song for each book in the Elvira Slate Investigations series, inspired by its themes. The vintage-style music video was shot in Hastings. Chevonne Jones sang the vocal, Charlotte Glasson on Sax and Mark Breman on Guitar.

The music video will premiere on 18 December at Kino-Teatr St Leonards, with a fun festive night for cynics and revellers alike. Jacey will talk about songs and books, and introduce a rare screening of 1944 Hollywood Christmas movie I’ll Be Seeing You. The film follows a romantic encounter between two lonely people – a female prisoner (Ginger Rogers) and a GI with PTSD (Joseph Cotten). A teenage Shirley Temple also stars. It’s a film that touches on trauma recovery in the 1940s. 

For tickets to the screening, video launch, and talk:  ticketsource.co.uk/kinoteatr/a-1940s-christmas-evening-with-writer-helen-jacey/e-adblor. My Particular Guy is out now on Spotify and all streaming platforms. Visit shedunnit.com for more information on Elvira Slate Investigations. Youtube talk: youtube.com/watch?v=QqoSdcCTuDE


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https://www.hastingsindependentpress.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Jacey-768x1024.jpghttps://www.hastingsindependentpress.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Jacey-150x150.jpgHIPArtsCharlotte Glasson,Chevonne Jones,Elvira Slate,Helen Jacey,Kino Teatr,Mark BremanThe festive season is not for sissies. Pressures of gift-giving, invitations or lack of, family dynamics, expenses, cold weather and bugs – even existential crises triggered by a life-size Santa and his reindeers landing in a certain Hastings shop. Our options?  Celebrate, reluctantly surrender, or enter a Scrooge-like state...The Hastings & St Leonards non-profit community newspaper