The Golden Wand Trilogy

I won the omnibus edition of the Golden Wand trilogy via Goodreads giveaway; the premise seemed promising and I looked forward to reading the tales of someone learning about a magical universe from the ground up. The opening chapters were interesting and threw the reader right into a high-stakes situation (play chess for your life). However, the execution of this was just a bit...um, OFF. I did not find the supposed evil character terrifying, and other characters just seemed to be able to sway each other all too easily. The dialog was not very believable, IMO. The protagonist, upon seeking revenge for his parents earlier deaths meets the person responsible, and learns the truth of the situation, and still kills. Why? For a supposed follower of “good”, this was not believable. I got through the first bit, but soon had enough. “DNF”.