At dawn on the ninth of May 1624, a fleet of 27 warships belonging to the West India Company arrived at Salvador in Bahia, in what is now known as Brazil.

What did they want? What had induced the Dutch to come all the way from the North Sea to the other side of the South Atlantic and invade Brazil?

You'll find out in The Heretics in the New World, a historical novel that paints a fresh and vivid picture of one of the world's first multinational corporations in the early decades of the 17th century.

It tells how the arrival of the invaders - mostly Protestants and Jews - leads to a drawn-out struggle to dominate the land and its peoples. It is a contest that pits the conservatively-minded Catholic residents of the sleepy City of Bahia, a Portuguese colony under the Spanish crown, led by its embattled Governor, Don Diogo, against the industrious, free-thinking Dutch, commanded by the dashing young Johan van Dorth.

It's a fascinating, action-packed story that will have you in its grip from beginning to end.