It's good to hear the one in Mr Rowl is good! That's the next book on my list, and everything I've heard about it suggests it'll be great fun :D

I dislike the trope where two lovers grew up like siblings, even if they're not actually siblings--it's just icky to me personally

Oh, yeah, that annoyed me too!

I... might have liked Ewen/Alison if it wasn't for Ewen/Keith? I don't know, but I'm just really not a multishipper, I suppose. If I like two characters together, I don't want a third character changing that dynamic, even if I like them—but if three or more characters have a dynamic I like in itself I might well ship them all, together or in different combinations.

I see what you mean about the differences between Aymar and Ewen. I suppose if you compare Aymar's warmth towards Laurent with Ewen's towards Keith they look fairly similar, but of course Laurent only gets that much warmth from Aymar after a lot of effort and developing trust, whereas Ewen treats Keith very generously from the first even though Keith is his enemy. Haha, yes, I did think the setting and significance of Sessignes vs. Ardroy was a particularly blatant example of 'TWN is a less well-executed beta version of FotH' :D