Puzzle 73: Themeless #7

Took a few weeks off, but I'm back with a 15x themeless! Construction started with the 1-Across/54-Across combo, then some of the criss-crossing 15s, and then everything else fell into place. This ended up with a pretty low word count (an ol' 66er) so I tried to crank up the clue difficulty to match, hence the categorization as "extra hard." Please let me know if this ended up too hard (or still too easy?).

Enjoy the solve, and share if you do!

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Puzzle 92: Take a Break

Just a quick break from themelesses for this silly little puzzle, inspired by a phrase that came up in conversation. Warning: one theme entry has some vulgar language; not recommended for kids. Enjoy the solve, and share if you do! puz pdf fullscreen solution

Puzzle 91: Themeless #23

I was almost halfway through cluing (an early version of) this when I noticed a short word in the grid duping part of a longer entry. See if you can guess what used to be at 1-Across before I had to rework that section... (Also, does anyone else have trouble deciding whether a ? is warranted for a clue? There are some obvious, punny cases, but other times it feels like it comes down to a matter of how easily I think a solver will spot a misdirection or some kind of unexpected usage, and that's hard to do sometimes.) Anyway, enjoy the solve, and share if you do! puz pdf fullscreen solution

Puzzle 87: Themeless #19

I'm pretty excited with how fresh and clean this puzzle turned out, although you, dear solver, will be the true judge of that. Some tricky clues here, but also some fun and easy ones to help you crack in. Enjoy the solve, and share if you do! puz pdf fullscreen solution

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