Looks Like a Novel

I've added another 4016 words to To Drive the Cold Winter Away. The current total is 14402, with ~40,000 words being minimum novel length. I'm almost at page 6 out of 10 of the outline, and editing will probably extend it a little more, so it looks like we may well end up with a standalone novel. But that makes it awkward to start with as a mystery series, since the central plot is about a duel our heroes are trying to stop. But then, a lot of the cozy mysteries I've read are also only nominally mysteries.