House Of Skirl Books in Order

The House Of Skirl series takes Henry Porter’s eye for atmosphere and turns it toward a different kind of mystery: a children’s gothic fantasy set almost entirely inside an ancient, rambling house. At its heart is Kim, a thirteen‑year‑old orphan who has been sent to live with distant relatives in the great, wind‑beaten home of the Drago family.

Skirl itself is the star of the story. It is huge, draughty and half‑empty, with rooms that never quite stay where you left them and a history that seems to press in from every wall. In a dusty gallery hangs a strange painting known as the Master of the Fallen Chairs, which shows thirteen chairs, eleven of them toppled. Each fallen chair, Kim learns, is said to mark the violent death of a Drago ancestor.

Kim’s days are dominated by his elusive guardian, a hostile tutor and a handful of uneasy servants. When one of the servant girls disappears, the mood in the house darkens further. Messages appear in the dust, whispers travel along the corridors and the painting seems to change when no one is looking. The sense that Skirl is watching its inhabitants, and perhaps nudging them, becomes hard to ignore.

Into this uneasy setup comes Iggy Ma‑tuu Clava, a mysterious relative from the Pacific islands who insists that he and Kim are the last of the Drago line—the two upright chairs still standing in the painting. Together they begin to test the house’s shifting rules, discovering hidden rooms, cracks in time and a cast of supernatural presences that includes, memorably, a very talkative great auk with strong views on her own extinction.

Porter balances the menace with humour and warmth. Kim’s loneliness, his fear of the adults around him and his strange kinship with Iggy give the story emotional weight, even as ghosts, curses and time slippages swirl around them. The book is set in the early 1960s but often steps outside ordinary time altogether, making Skirl feel like a pocket universe with its own logic.

The Master of the Fallen Chairs is the first part of a planned trilogy set in and around Skirl, and it leaves plenty of secrets unresolved. What ties the Drago curse to the painting? How far can the house bend time before it breaks? The series invites readers who enjoy dense, imaginative worlds—and who don’t mind a few chills—to move in and explore.