Mestra

A Short Story

By Madeline Miller

2026

First Published

Number of Pages

2H26M

Audio Length

A brilliant new short story from the #1 New York Times bestselling author Madeline Miller—her first new work of fiction since the publication of Circe—that vibrantly reimagines the powerful and forgotten myth of Mestra. A cursed father, a gifted daughter Mestra, daughter of the King of Thessaly, is granted a unique gift by Poseidon: the ability to transform into any being she can imagine. Her father, on the other hand, is cursed: As punishment for disrespecting the goddess Demeter, he is in possession of an unnatural, insatiable hunger. Devoted Mestra suggests using her new gift to help her father. But if his hunger is bottomless, how much will he take from her? Soon she must decide: Will she keep helping her father survive, or finally break free? A jewel-like tale of human fallibility, Mestra confirms Madeline Miller as our high priestess of mythology.

Author

Madeline Miller

Author · 10 books

Madeline Miller was born in Boston and grew up in New York City and Philadelphia. She attended Brown University, where she earned her BA and MA in Classics. For the last ten years she has been teaching and tutoring Latin, Greek and Shakespeare to high school students. She has also studied at the University of Chicago’s Committee on Social Thought, and in the Dramaturgy department at Yale School of Drama, where she focused on the adaptation of classical texts to modern forms. She currently lives in Cambridge, MA, where she teaches and writes. The Song of Achilles is her first novel.