My time: 4:17.
Theme: expressions with EX- as prefix, but clued as if two words, with the EX representing a "former lover" (which turn of phrase I find unappealing). For example, "stress between you and your former lover" is EX TENSION. "Former lovers' stances in photos?" is EX POSES. And the joke at the end is "current lover who seems suspiciously preoccupied," an EX PENDING.
Author Leon URIS has come up before, for his novel Mila 18. This time it's another novel with a number at the end of the title, QB VII. The four-part novel highlights the events leading to a libel trial in the United Kingdom, loosely based on Uris' own court case for defamation that arose from his best-selling novel Exodus.
ANTONIO is the villain of Shakespeare's "The Tempest." He's Prospero's brother, who betrayed him to get his dukedom. He also urges Sebastian to kill his own brother, King Alonso.
I don't like the clue "write with a chisel on stone" for ETCH. To chisel and to etch are different things.
"Undercoat of an oil painting" is GESSO, seen a few times in the past. "Oh, no, not" AGAIN!
NERO was clued as "emperor just before the Year of the Four Emperors" back in 2018.
A nice palate cleanser of a Monday puzzle. It has a smart theme that, once you see the pattern, helps you solve it. And I didn't ERR too much in its completion.
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