Greta Greene invites you to step inside

The Tea Room & Elevator

Before The Ivy Grew

A forgotten tea room. An elevator that travels farther than up or down. One girl, one ticket, and a hundred years of ivy waiting to be unwound. Pour a cup — the kettle knows when the elevator is coming.

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0Illustrations
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100Years of Ivy
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Hardcover& eBook

Unwind the ivy

About The Author

The keeper of the tea room

Hardcover edition of The Tea Room and Elevator by Greta Greene — Greta Greene · Author

“I wrote the kind of door I always wanted to find as a child — one that opens quietly, and closes on a different century.” — Greta Greene

Greta Greene grew up above her grandmother’s bookshop, where the kettle was never cold and the back room was strictly out of bounds. Naturally, she spent every spare hour pressed against its door, listening for the hum of something on the other side.

Years later, that hum became The Tea Room & Elevator — Before The Ivy Grew, her debut novel: a story of painted portals, patient grandmothers, stone lions who keep their promises, and the quiet bravery of a girl named Nora Ashford.

When she is not writing, Greta collects mismatched teacups, restores old ivy-covered houses she absolutely should not buy, and insists — politely but firmly — that every staircase in her home leads one floor higher than it used to.

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Debut NovelBefore The Ivy Grew, 2024
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GenreTime-travel fantasy · Family mystery

Greta Greene

About The Book

Before The Ivy Grew

Front and back cover of The Tea Room and Elevator

Some doors only open for the person who needs them most.

When Nora Ashford is sent to spend a dull autumn at her great-aunt’s crumbling ivy-covered house, she expects nothing but cold tea and older wallpaper. But behind the pantry, where no pantry should be, stands a green door with a brass teapot for a handle — and beyond it, a tea room that serves every century at once.

One mysterious ticket later, Nora is stepping through an elevator that travels sideways through time: into harbours full of ghost-ships, a painter’s studio where completed canvases come true, and a buried hall of stone lions where a ledger bears her own name — written a hundred years before she was born.

With the help of Teo, a boy who has been lost between decades for far longer than he will admit, Nora must unwind the ivy, right an old wrong, and discover why the house has been waiting for her all along.

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Our Highlights

Scenes from inside the tea room

Pencil illustration: The Tea Room — The kettle never empties, the armchairs never match — and the sixth cup is always already poured.

Pencil illustration: A Ticket Through Time — One glowing ticket on a lace tablecloth — and every clock in the house politely stops.

Pencil illustration: The Round Table of Seven — Seven stone sockets, seven eras. Nora’s hand fits the eighth — the one that should not exist.

Pencil illustration: Beneath the Lion’s Gate — Three tunnels, one candle, and ivy growing where ivy has no business growing.

Pencil illustration: Nora Ashford’s Ledger — Her own name, written in a book older than the house. Some pages wait a century to be read.

Pencil illustration: The Ivy-Covered Door — Two farthings, a sealed letter, and a door that had never been there before.

The elevator is warming up

Step Through
The Green Door

“Knock twice. The ivy will do the rest.”

Begin the Journey

What Readers Are Saying

Reviews from the tea room table

★★★★★

“Greene writes doors the way other authors write characters. By chapter three I was checking my own pantry. Utterly, deliciously transportive.”

★★★★★

“My daughter read it in two days and has since labelled every door in our house with era names. Nora Ashford is the heroine this generation deserves.”

★★★★★

“A masterclass in cosy stakes. The stone lions alone are worth the price of admission — I gasped, I teared up, I immediately brewed tea.”

★★★★★

“Time travel has rarely felt so gentle or so wise. The elevator doesn’t take you to another era — it takes you to the truth about your own.”

★★★★½

“Lush, pencilled illustrations sit like pressed leaves between the chapters. This is a book designed to be handed down — spine creased and tea-stained.”

★★★★★

“We stocked thirty copies. They were gone by Sunday, and three customers came back to ask if the tea room was real. That is the highest praise I know.”

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The Tea Room & Elevator

About The Author

About The Book

Some doors only open for the person who needs them most.

Our Highlights

Step ThroughThe Green Door

What Readers Are Saying

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Step Through
The Green Door