[hildea]

I haven't read either of those you mention, but you could try Bujold's "Sharing Knife" series. It's got innocent heroes, great sacrifices, ancient evil, and journeys. Also romance, families, friendships, and family troubles.

Small spoiler about family troubles, revealed quite early in the book:

Spoiler:

At the beginning, the heroine is out on the road because she believed the cute neighbour boy when he said "You can't get pregnant the first time" and now she's too embarrased to face her family.

Novik's "Uprooted" might also fit. The great evil is right next door, so there's not much travel, and there's a bit of politics, but it's of the type "Your Majesty, please send help to hold back the great evil", not huge complex intrigues like in Game of Thrones. Mostly it's trying to deal with a great evil with too little knowledge and too few resources, making horrible mistakes from the best intentions and fixing them at huge costs.