Green River Blend by Armand Rosamilia

I don’t know about this book. The concept really had me. A small town in Florida, not much going on, and everyone knows everyone else. Small town life. Then a new coffee shop opens up on Main Street and the residents can’t get enough of the shop’s Green River Blend coffee. Soon not only are the residents are hooked on this coffee but tourists are too. People wait on line for hours just to get their coffee, multiple cups, and they wait on the line for hours, multiple times a day, just to get this new blend. It comes to a point that nothing else is sold in the coffee shop; no food, no other coffee blend, no other drinks, nothing just the Green River Blend coffee.

The coffee is almost magical. If you want to be a writer you’re suddenly able to write novels, short stories, novellas, all within a short time. Heck, just put your hands on the computer’s keyboard, close your eyes and before you know it a few hours have passed and you’ve typed half a novel.

If you like to drink alcohol but don’t like that nasty hangover the next day Green River Blend helps you drink all the beer you want without the pesky after effects.

Maybe you’re kind of lonely, shy, and frumpy and want to do a little something something to enhance your looks. Well, the coffee will make you brave enough to do just that and lots more.

Sounds like some good coffee, eh? But there’s a downside. There’s always a downside.

Dead bodies are showing up. Residents are being killed, tourists are being murdered. I don’t mean one or two bodies, let’s start with 33 bodies buried in 33 shallow graves. Is there a serial murderer around? Are there several serial murderers around? Maybe, just maybe, Green River Blend coffee is not just addicting as a coffee but maybe, possibly, the coffee is also making people addicted to the new powers the coffee gives them.

If you want to drink without getting drunk you now drink all the time. If you want to write a novel now all you do is write and think of nothing else. And if somewhere deep inside you makes you want to kill, well, the coffee helps you achieve that dream too. Heck, even if you aren’t a closet murderer drinking enough of this coffee brings out quite the killer instinct in everyone.

I liked the premise of “Green River Blend.” I was hooked until the prude old lady in me came out when lots of sex appeared in the story. Okay, I get it, sometimes you need some sex for whatever reason but for me it takes away from the story line. Armand, wasn’t there another way to bring your point across? Three-ways, trips to the bathroom for some “sexual relief”, sex between sisters (stepsisters), strangers, and other ways that I just didn’t want to read about. Yes, I tried to skip these areas but it was happening pretty frequently.

And the violence level was bit too much for me too. I’m pretty careful with the authors I read. For instance, I enjoy a good Dean Koontz book but not when he writes about sewing the eyelids shut of some recently murdered woman who was arranged in a strange position after she was killed.

I like horror books. A good zombie novel always appeals to me. There’s nothing I enjoy more than a good dystopian book but if too much sex and other gratuitous things happen, it kind of leaves me cold.

On the whole, I kind of liked “Green River Blend” even though some of it was not my cup of tea, or cup of coffee for that matter. I think there’s a “Green River Blend 2” but I don’t know if I’ll read it but I do want to explore more of author Armand Rosamilia works. I read that he wrote about zombies. I’ll check on those novels.

If you don’t care much for violence or you’re as much as a prude as I am, and I admit to it, maybe I’d suggest you not read this book. But if you’re okay with sex and violence ”Green River Blend” is a good horror tale.