Can anyone also suggest any other Latin American history books (primarily those set from the 16th to 18th century)

Almost done with "The Conquest of New Spain" by Bernal Diaz. Highly recommend it to anyone studying Latin American history and the exploration era as it is a heavily detailed account of the expeditions of Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba, Juan de Grijalva and the famous Hernan Cortes (all of which mostly take place around the Yucatan Peninsula and southern Mexico).

The Hernandez and Grijalva expeditions were both failures as Francisco Hernandez was killed in 1517 after being fired up on by the indigenous people of the Yucatan and dying of his injuries. Later on Juan de Grijalva went on to go further south of the Yucatan in present day Honduras where he was killed in 1527 by the native people. The only successful expedition was Cortes's expedition who landed on the Yucatan coast and established contact with Montezuma II. Most of these expeditions are accounted well by Diaz who makes you feel like you are looking through his eyes in the story.