What do you think?
Rate this book
Candy Kane #3
One for the Money
Candy's father, Major Kane, is overseas. Candy finds adventure in San Marino, California training a race horse named Mister Smith.
- GenresRomanceYoung Adult
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1946
1 person is currently reading
44 people want to read
About the author
Janet Lambert
155 books42 followersJanet Lambert, born in Crawfordsville, Indiana, was a popular girls' story author from 1941 through 1969 (and beyond to today). She wrote 54 books during that time about a number of different girls and their families. Her most popular series were about the Parrishes and the Jordons. These stories, and many of her other series, became entwined as the various characters met each other, married, and then had children of their own!
Janet, having an interest in both the theater and writing, decided to write her own plays in which to act. She did achieve her goal and appeared on Broadway. When she married a career Army officer, her life on stage came to a close, but her stories were still flowing. Knowing well the "life of the Army," many of Ms. Lambert's books are set on Army posts throughout the United States.
Legend has it that her stories started as bedtime stories for her children while they were overseas. Each night, the author would tell the next "installment" of the series. Later, after her kids were grown, she penned one of her stories (Star Spangled Summer) and—according to legend—it was sold to a publisher the very day after she sent it to them.
Janet, having an interest in both the theater and writing, decided to write her own plays in which to act. She did achieve her goal and appeared on Broadway. When she married a career Army officer, her life on stage came to a close, but her stories were still flowing. Knowing well the "life of the Army," many of Ms. Lambert's books are set on Army posts throughout the United States.
Legend has it that her stories started as bedtime stories for her children while they were overseas. Each night, the author would tell the next "installment" of the series. Later, after her kids were grown, she penned one of her stories (Star Spangled Summer) and—according to legend—it was sold to a publisher the very day after she sent it to them.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 6, 2015
I own the original publication of the this book with a dust jacket.
I love all of Lambert's books. Although this one has the same charm as the others, and her character, Candy Kane, is 3 dimensional, I didn't enjoy it as much as the other books. Maybe because I don't like horse stories very much and this is about getting a horse ready for a race. The first two Candy Kane books were better.
Colonel Kane is overseas in the aftermath of World War II. Candy is living in California with her mother. The Reed family, from the previous two books, live next door, but Barton is still flying planes in the Air Force. Candy becomes involved with a young race horse and his elderly poor owner who lives nearby and works to get the horse ready to race.
I love all of Lambert's books. Although this one has the same charm as the others, and her character, Candy Kane, is 3 dimensional, I didn't enjoy it as much as the other books. Maybe because I don't like horse stories very much and this is about getting a horse ready for a race. The first two Candy Kane books were better.
Colonel Kane is overseas in the aftermath of World War II. Candy is living in California with her mother. The Reed family, from the previous two books, live next door, but Barton is still flying planes in the Air Force. Candy becomes involved with a young race horse and his elderly poor owner who lives nearby and works to get the horse ready to race.
May 25, 2021
The third and last of the Candy stories. I will miss these characters--especially Barton Reed, who is not the average teen-romance hero. Candy still reminded me very much of Deanna Durbin in personality and talents, and I appreciated the fact that she did not suddenly become a great horsewoman in this book. She also had some communication troubles with Barton that humanized her a bit.
This is a mostly light and fluffy story that gives a glimpse into the 1940's USA (some aspects displeasing to a modern mind) post-WWII. These books are not only fun reading--I also enjoy analyzing how things have changed since then in both positive and negative ways.
This is a mostly light and fluffy story that gives a glimpse into the 1940's USA (some aspects displeasing to a modern mind) post-WWII. These books are not only fun reading--I also enjoy analyzing how things have changed since then in both positive and negative ways.
September 6, 2021
I've never heard of this author before; I found this at Goodwill several years ago and snagged it because it was a vintage horse book. I had no idea it was the third in a trilogy until after I read it, and while I'm kind of sorry I spoiled myself on some plot points from books 1 and 2, it was so darling that I'd still like to read about Candy Kane's earlier adventures.
Racing isn't my favorite genre of horse-book fiction, but California racing is more interesting to me than the overexposed East Coast version, and I really liked their scrappy, homegrown measures to find trainers and jockeys for her neighbor's colt.
Furthermore, the setting is VIBRANT, making me realize how few teen books I've read about the late 1940s, post-WWII, whether historical fiction or actually published then. California in that time period is even rarer. I felt like a time traveler walking around in her lovely world, drinking in the description of all the sights and taking notice of all the customs and sayings that have gone out of fashion or been forgotten entirely.
I also loved the glimpses of Candy's sister -- a somewhat high strung 22-year-old newlywed, prone to coming back to the family home to flop down and SIGH about her dreadfully boring married life, with a husband who shuts himself up in his office peck-peck-pecking at a typewriter all day and paying no attention to her, while she gets "callouses on her feet from following a vacuum cleaner." (Turns out when you marry for love over money, you actually have to do all your own cooking and cleaning. Appalling!
Though to be fair, Chris does seem kind of like a tool, and the fact that the book includes the line "He remembered the way Leigh ran up and down stairs, crying wildly and throwing clothes into suitcases and his precious papers into the fire, but he forgot his own shouting, the door he had locked against her and his grim, maddening silence. Something in Chris loved a fight, demanded it when thwarted, and that something enjoyed behaving like prison bars to Leigh while he watched her batter vainly against them" makes me think that however happy an ending is concocted for them, they're getting divorced by the end of the 60s -- and good riddance.)
My absolute favorite part, though, is the line that made me put the book down and burst out laughing:
(for context, Candy's auditioning to be a nightclub singer, wearing the embarrassingly flimsy required dress, and has just been insulted by the owner as "lousy")
"Listen." Candy forgot about her ruffles or lack of them. She put her hands on her hips and looked down at Mr. Cabaratti much as she might have looked at an objectionable porpoise had she been in a bathing suit on the beach.
AN OBJECTIONABLE PORPOISE. What even -- why -- how did that simile come into your brain and what does it even mean (I love it though).
Anyway. The characters are so vivid that I find myself thinking about the wonderful stories Candy must have told her children, grandchildren and possibly even great-grandchildren about her teenage years, though not without a twinge of sadness that she ultimately had to choose between marriage and a singing career. Naturally the book sets this up as perfectly fine, who cares about some silly job when you can finally settle down and start a household with THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE!, but I imagine she would have been very happy to know that future generations could have both.
Side note: I am not usually one to caution readers against objectionable content in old books, not least because I usually don't recognize it as such, but even I noticed in this one that the two happy black servants in the Kane household are pretty stereotyped (with language to match). I also went "yikes" when they visit the immaculately groomed racetrack grounds and Candy marvels, "It doesn't look much as if the Japs had ever been interned here, does it?" without the slightest bit of additional reflection.
Racing isn't my favorite genre of horse-book fiction, but California racing is more interesting to me than the overexposed East Coast version, and I really liked their scrappy, homegrown measures to find trainers and jockeys for her neighbor's colt.
Furthermore, the setting is VIBRANT, making me realize how few teen books I've read about the late 1940s, post-WWII, whether historical fiction or actually published then. California in that time period is even rarer. I felt like a time traveler walking around in her lovely world, drinking in the description of all the sights and taking notice of all the customs and sayings that have gone out of fashion or been forgotten entirely.
I also loved the glimpses of Candy's sister -- a somewhat high strung 22-year-old newlywed, prone to coming back to the family home to flop down and SIGH about her dreadfully boring married life, with a husband who shuts himself up in his office peck-peck-pecking at a typewriter all day and paying no attention to her, while she gets "callouses on her feet from following a vacuum cleaner." (Turns out when you marry for love over money, you actually have to do all your own cooking and cleaning. Appalling!
Though to be fair, Chris does seem kind of like a tool, and the fact that the book includes the line "He remembered the way Leigh ran up and down stairs, crying wildly and throwing clothes into suitcases and his precious papers into the fire, but he forgot his own shouting, the door he had locked against her and his grim, maddening silence. Something in Chris loved a fight, demanded it when thwarted, and that something enjoyed behaving like prison bars to Leigh while he watched her batter vainly against them" makes me think that however happy an ending is concocted for them, they're getting divorced by the end of the 60s -- and good riddance.)
My absolute favorite part, though, is the line that made me put the book down and burst out laughing:
(for context, Candy's auditioning to be a nightclub singer, wearing the embarrassingly flimsy required dress, and has just been insulted by the owner as "lousy")
"Listen." Candy forgot about her ruffles or lack of them. She put her hands on her hips and looked down at Mr. Cabaratti much as she might have looked at an objectionable porpoise had she been in a bathing suit on the beach.
AN OBJECTIONABLE PORPOISE. What even -- why -- how did that simile come into your brain and what does it even mean (I love it though).
Anyway. The characters are so vivid that I find myself thinking about the wonderful stories Candy must have told her children, grandchildren and possibly even great-grandchildren about her teenage years, though not without a twinge of sadness that she ultimately had to choose between marriage and a singing career. Naturally the book sets this up as perfectly fine, who cares about some silly job when you can finally settle down and start a household with THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE!, but I imagine she would have been very happy to know that future generations could have both.
Side note: I am not usually one to caution readers against objectionable content in old books, not least because I usually don't recognize it as such, but even I noticed in this one that the two happy black servants in the Kane household are pretty stereotyped (with language to match). I also went "yikes" when they visit the immaculately groomed racetrack grounds and Candy marvels, "It doesn't look much as if the Japs had ever been interned here, does it?" without the slightest bit of additional reflection.
July 24, 2008
Not as good as the first two Candy Kanes...probably because I was never a horse girl, like so many of my friends. It definitely reached some sort of closure, though, which is good, because I gather that it's the last of the Candys.
May 13, 2015
Not as good as the first two Candy Kane books, although I didn't hate it; I found her guy to be, um, too over-bearing?.. rather engrossed in himself, but I think he woke up to what a jerk he was being finally.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews