Welcome back! I’ve got some book-related news in the works, and I hope to break it by the next blog post. In the meantime, please enjoy a puzzle while you’re here.

The next entry is based on Slitherlink. Jack Miller, a mail carrier in Hertz County, has to navigate some tricky neighborhoods on his route. Some houses can only be approached from specific angles, and some can’t be approached at all! Given a map of the neighborhood (a grid), use the following guidelines to build Jack’s route:

• Draw line segments between the houses to form a single loop without crossings or branches.
• The number on each house indicates how many line segments must surround it.

The pictures below depict a sample puzzle on a 5×5 grid, along with its solution. The orange lines represent the complete route; note that all the houses do not have to be inside the loop (although that condition offers a fun variation of this puzzle).

Now, can you solve the puzzle below and help Jack construct his mail route?

The solution will be released in the next blog post. Also, if you tried the puzzle from the last blog entry, here is its solution below. I could do these types of puzzles all day!