Turn Right for Terror

by James Cooper

An elderly woman reminisces about her strange and frightening experiences as an actor in a supernatural television show that ran in the 60s.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories

48 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 24, 2026

About the author

Librarian Note: There are more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Thibault Busschots · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ellen is visiting her mom in a care home when she recognizes Rose Ward. Rose was an actress who used to play in a popular supernatural television show in the 1960’s. They start talking. And Rose reminisces about her time working on the show.


One thing I like about Rose is that, now that she’s in her nineties, she just speaks from the heart. There’s no wasting time on politeness or subtleties. She grabs your attention from the start by voicing her frustrations about the past. Like how working on the show clearly left some scars. She even says that multiple people died during the making of that show. She doesn’t care if Ellen believes her or not. She’s just saying it like it is, how she experienced her time on the show. And she doesn’t mind admitting the things she did wrong either.


This short story is basically just one character telling about her past when she was an actress in a popular TV show. But I have to admit, she has a really interesting story to tell. I’m going to round this one up to the full five stars. I might be overrating it, but I was hooked and I really enjoyed this one.

[X]

DNF about two-thirds of the way through. A decent concept, but the writing is workmanlike at best, totally undercutting all attempts at spookiness.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel like I read maybe one of four Tor Originals that are released in their newsletter. This one was pretty good. It definitely makes me envision old, spooky, low budget BBC genre productions.

[Rachael · Rating 2 out of 5]

CW: suicide, bullying, homophobia, attempted sexual assault, anxiety, suicidal thoughts (mentioned)

There's an interesting premise here and while the story was fine, I wasn't necessarily blown away by it. Cooper does create Rose as a complex character and I felt that she was given the space to develop as she recounts her time on Turn Right for Terror. However, I didn't really see the value of Ellen being in the story. You don't really hear much from her except for some commentary on Rose's recounting of events and I don't necessarily think she really got the point behind Rose's story. To me, it just felt like she had a chat with her favorite childhood actress and doesn't really think too much about it despite said actress detailing why being in the show was the worst time in her life.

[MollyK · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 rounded up.

Intriguing novelette from TOR. I have this visceral memory of an episode from a TV show just like this. I was an 80s/90s kid, so Tales from the Darkside / The Outer Limits / The Twilight Zone etc. Trying to google the exact episode/ TV show come up with nothing. Do I just remember it wrong? Was it a dream instead? To this day I can still picture the elderly couple desperately climbing crumbling stairs in a vain attempt to escape.

Anyway, I love horror stories involving TV shows and memory. This is a good one to add to the collection and I look forward to reading more from this author.

[Fiona Knight · Rating 2 out of 5]

A really good idea that unfortunately just sort of petered out - I found the storytelling to be the strongest part, with the framing moments fairly clunky.

[Ross Warren · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gem of a creepy tale. James Cooper never disappoints.

[Katherine · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really did not care for this and really had to push through to keep from DNFing it. Was this written by AI? What genre was this even supposed to be? I just did not connect with this at all.

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars for this interesting tale!

[Katrice · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truth will not cease to be true if you silence the speaker.

[Jennb_9 · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5