Anyone who has ever been fortunate enough to share their life with a dog knows that the experience is both profound and transformative. Here, in this charming collection of essays, 15 celebrated authors share unforgettable tales of the dogs who left their pawprints on their hearts. With contributions from Isabel Allende, Chris Bohjalian, Bonnie Garmus, Roxane Gay, Emily Henry, Ann Leary, Tova Mirvis, Jodi Picoult, Elizabeth Strout, Amy Tan, Adriana Trigiani, Nick Trout, Paul Yoon and Laura Zigman, THE BEST DOG IN THE WORLD captures the full range of the canine-human connection, from the joy of welcoming a new puppy to the heartache of saying goodbye to a beloved friend.

The Naik sisters escaped their traumatic past in Mumbai to come to the States, but their journeys have been vastly different. Simi is working toward a bright future as a pediatric nurse in a small town in Kentucky when Rupi shows up at her door in distress, on the run, and dragging trouble in her wake. With Rupi’s safety in jeopardy, the sisters hatch a desperate plan to keep her in the country: Rupi must get married --- and fast --- even if it means Simi recruiting the man she’s been secretly dating as her sister’s groom. As the big day inches closer, Simi and Rupi face a storm of wedding shenanigans and romantic surprises, not to mention sisterly jealousies. As the stakes and tensions rise, will their secrets tear them apart, or will they find a way to risk everything for love?

Ten years after her daughter, Melanie, was murdered, Bree Winter is finally moving on with a new love, a new home and a new beginning. Then a deathbed confession from the convicted killer throws Bree’s life into a tailspin all over again. He readily confesses to murdering four girls. But not Melanie. At first, Bree and her ex-husband don’t buy a word of it. Until inconsistencies about the crime emerge. So does the dreadful feeling that the monster who shattered Bree’s family isn’t lying. The only way she can get to the truth is to power through the trauma and return to the town in upstate New York where Melanie’s life came to a brutal end. Not only could the real killer still be in their midst, but as Bree begins to dig through Melanie’s past, what she discovers calls into question everything she has believed --- about the crime and about Melanie herself.

Detective Casey Duncan and her husband, Sheriff Eric Dalton, are entering a new chapter of life as parents to their six-month-old baby. Their family is hidden away in the sanctuary town of Haven's Rock where they can live safe and private lives. But when they encounter hikers too close to the borders of Haven's Rock, they realize they're in danger of being exposed. When they find one of the hikers dead the next day, they realize that their paranoia was justified, but they're no closer to finding out who these people were and what they were doing in the vicinity of Haven's Rock. Only by tracing the hikers' movements, as well as examining the recent behavior of their closest neighbors, the workers of a secretive mining camp, will they be able to figure out where the threat is coming from and shut it down.

Alexandria “Alix” Watson has learned one lesson from her barren childhood in the foster-care system: Unlike people, books will never let you down. Working three dead-end jobs to make ends meet and knowing that college is a pipe dream, Alix takes nightly refuge in the high-vaulted reading room at the Boston Public Library, escaping into her favorite fantasy novels and dreaming of far-off lands. Until the day she stumbles through a hidden door and meets the Librarian: the ageless, acerbic guardian of a hidden library where the desperate and the lost escape to new lives...inside their favorite books. The Librarian takes a dazzled Alix under her wing, but before she can escape into the pages of her new life, a shadowy enemy emerges to threaten everyone the Astral Library has ever helped protect.

Ethel Gathers, the proud wife of an American Officer, is living in Occupied Germany in the 1950s. After discovering a local orphanage filled with the abandoned mixed-race children of German women and Black American GIs, Ethel feels compelled to help find these children homes. Philadelphia-born Ozzie Phillips volunteers for the recently desegregated army in 1948. While serving in Mannheim, Germany, he meets a local woman, Jelka, and the two embark on a relationship that will impact their lives forever. In 1965 Maryland, Sophia Clark is given an opportunity to attend a prestigious all-white boarding school and escape her heartless parents. While at the school, she discovers a secret that upends her world and sends her on a quest to unravel her own identity. KEEPER OF LOST CHILDREN explores how one woman’s vision will change the course of countless lives.

Shanghai, 1911. Lisan Liu is elated when she is hired as secretary to wealthy American Caroline Stanton, the new mistress of Lennox Manor on the outskirts of Shanghai’s International Settlement. However, the Manor has a dark past due to a previous owner’s suicide, and soon Lisan’s childhood nightmares resurface with more intensity. Adding to her unease is the young gardener, Yao, who both entices and disturbs her. Newly married Caroline looks forward to life in China with her husband, Thomas. But an unwelcome guest, Andrew Grey, attends her party and claims to know secrets she can’t afford to have exposed. As Caroline struggles with Grey’s extortion and Thomas’ mysterious illness, Lisan’s future is upended when she learns the truth about her past, and why her identity has been hidden all these years.

Courtney Gray’s peaceful vacation turns into a nightmare when she discovers her brother and sister-in-law dead in their lakeside cottage. Her niece, Reese, is missing. Her nephew, Wyatt, is asleep upstairs --- unharmed. As police swarm the quiet resort, dark truths about Courtney’s family --- and the town itself --- begin to surface. Is Reese a victim...or the killer? With everyone hiding something, Courtney races to uncover the terrible mystery. But the closer she gets, the harder it is to know who --- or what --- to trust.

In a quiet South Seattle neighborhood, a suspected drug smuggler and his girlfriend are murdered in their home. When a young man named Michael Westbrook is accused of the brutal double homicide, his uncle, JP Harrison, turns to Keera Duggan to defend him. The evidence is circumstantial --- Michael worked with one of the victims, drugs were found in his possession, and he bolted from authorities. Ruthless star prosecutor Anh Tran has gotten convictions on much less. With the testimony of two prison informants, the case looks grave. To free her client, Keera must dig deep before Tran crushes both of them. As the investigation gets more twisted with each new find, Keera is swept up in a mystery with far-reaching consequences. This case isn’t just murder. It’s looking like a conspiracy.

One night after a party, old grievances surface between married couple Aliya and Sam, and the night ends badly with a heated argument. Sam goes for a run early the next morning to clear her head --- and doesn’t come back. Aliya reports her wife missing, but as a gay Muslim daughter of immigrants, she can't escape the scrutiny and suspicion of those around her. Scared and furious, and feeling isolated as strangers and acquaintances alike doubt her innocence, Aliya makes one wrong choice after another. She must fight to prove her innocence in the public eye even as she is torn between her fear that Sam is dead and her desire to find and save her wife. But is safety ever truly possible for them?