Good wishes for the New Year

A little late, I know! Gareth, thanks for the new books, Kropki 2 and 200 Conservative and the 3D Jumbo Sudoku. May 2015 bring you continued success and more books for us ever thirsty addicts! Sue, Christine, I hope you're both well. Best for 2015!

Hi Marilyn, and a happy New Year to you too and also to Gareth and Sue! Yes, I'm very well, thank you and puzzling on and off as you do! Missing the Xtra books, but still got an awful lot to keep me going and at the minute am working my way through the second set of odd/even sudoku on the Puzzlemix site!

Two puzzles that I really like, and you don't find an awful lot of (not that I'm hinting or anything!) are ABCD End View puzzles and Stars.

All the best for 2015 to everyone.

Interesting! By 'ABCD End View' I presume you mean what is commonly called 'Easy As ABC', but what is 'Stars'? Do you mean 'Star Battle'?

Hi Gareth, yes you are right with Easy as ABC and Star Battles. Dare I say this on here (lol) but I subscribe to Beyond Sudoku magazine and the names I mentioned in my previous post are the names they use. You just get four of the ABC puzzles and three Star Battles puzzles each edition, all of which are a little bit easy (even for me!) but you don't seem to find them anywhere else.

I used to get Beyond Sudoku but stopped a while back, as I had a vast pile of puzzle magazines. I fondly called it "The Leaning Tower of Puzzles". I don't recall Star Battles, so might have to have a peek next time I'm in Smiths! Also missing Xtra, but the various 200 and 101 books are keeping me well occupied, alongside my everlasting love, Hanjie!

Hello again, Christine and Marilyn! And Gareth of course. And a belated Happy New Year to you all. I haven't checked on here for a bit and it is lovely to find these messages.

Like you Christine, I have re-subscribed to Beyond Suduko. I gave up this years ago as it seemed stuck in a rut and Gareth started publishing the vastly superior Xtra. I had another look last year and discovered it now offered much more variety. I also enjoy the Endview and Star puzzles over a coffee plus the Take Five ones. It also has some good Hanjies Marilyn! Plus Mosaic and Labyrinth which are old favourites of mine. A decent variety but less challenge than in Gareth's puzzles so ultimately less satisfying.

I really do miss Xtra and fondly remember the early days when the issues came so fast I could never keep up! Meanwhile (as I said elsewhere) I am working through another copy of my fav Inequalities (still challenging even now) and revisiting the early Xtra editions. I will look at the other books mentioned above which I had somehow missed in the deluge of Amazon emails!

All the best to everyone. Keeeeeeep puzzling!

Sue