WHOA, MATILDA! by Janet Lambert

I just can't get my Matilda's to line up. Kind of the same problem Candy and Barton have...

So we have a time jump here. Our little Candy Kane is now a senior in high school. She is living in DC with her parents. Her dad is doing importantly, manly war work, her mom is volunteering like a crazy person. Leigh has married an officer and is living in California. Cleoretta is still with the family and Candy arranged a marriage for her with Joe, the elevator operator, in spite of him being desperately in love with Lieutenant Colonel Kane. Seriously, Joe thought 'he was the handsomest mane in Washington."
Turns out LC is headed for North Africa along with Leigh's husband and Coop - the young officer Candy fixed up with Jane in the last book.
Barton comes up to Washington, just a buck private, in spite of his father being a big muckety-muck in the service. He dropped out of West Point and is hoping to become a flier.
The ladies end up going down to the Fort Benning area, which is where Barton is conveniently stationed. He stores his shit-heap of a car - Matilda - with them at Jane's ancestral home. There is a baby who is cute and not yet annoying.
The story concerns itself with Candy and Barton's nascent love affair. (No tongues.) and Leigh becoming less of a beast and starting to do for others.
Candy is really good at singing God Bless America and is invited to Florida to get people to buy bonds with her talent. Barton proves himself less of an ass by knowing how to interact with his betters and eventually gets sent to flight school. Coop loses a foot.
I loved how Marcia completely lost her marbles when LC Kane got called up. She was a basket case and it was a nice comparison to when the Parrish parents dealt with the same thing calmly. I found it interesting how this was basically propaganda for food rationing and what a great idea it is. (Gas rationing, however sucks, because Matilda is always hungry for fuel.)
The parts where Candy has to be zany to get an audition with a famous bandleader are silly, but ultimately pay off when she gets to go on tour. Even though she doesn't appreciate it.
Corp comes home and the Kanes are going to move back north or some such nonsense, it will become clear in the next CK book which seems that it might be horse-centric. I don't really care.
So what we get from this is that war changes people, usually for the better if you don't count missing feet and Candy is the one that makes the world go around and Barton is still pretty much a man-baby dud.