John Edwards and the lover Rielle Hunter who plans to tell all

RIELLE HUNTER: John Edwards’ former lover once vowed never to cash in on their affair with a book (AP)

Barely hours after Americans heard the dull thump of the trial of John Edwards, the one-time presidential hopeful, ending with an acquittal on one charge of campaign finance violations and a mistrial on all the others, they are being told: just wait a minute, you haven't heard the half of it.

That, at least, is the tease contained in the title of a tell-all book that is speeding towards bookshops written by Rielle Hunter, the woman at the centre of the scandal that so comprehensively sundered the former US senator's reputation. Coming out on 26 June, it is called What Really Happened: John Edwards, Our Daughter and Me.

"A lot has been said. But no one has heard the truth... until now," Glenn Yeffeth, publisher of BenBella Books, told People magazine. We can now expect to learn more about how Ms Hunter got entangled with Mr Edwards in 2007 as he was preparing to run for President and everything else that happened, including their having a child.

In a grovel on the courthouse steps at the end of the trial on Friday, Mr Edwards denied having broken any laws when he accepted nearly $1m from benefactors to help hide the affair but conceded he had behaved badly. He made no reference to his ex-wife, Elizabeth Edwards, who died from cancer in December 2010, or Ms Hunter. But the love-child, Quinn, now four years old, got a special mention. "My precious Quinn," he said, "who I love more than any of you could ever imagine, and I am so close to, and am so, so grateful for, so grateful for Quinn."

Ms Hunter once vowed not to write a book. "I could've cashed out big. But that's not what I'm about," she told GQ magazine in 2010. "I love Johnny and I love my daughter more than anything in the world, and I don't want to ever do anything to hurt them or hurt their relationship."

If few will be surprised by her volte face, it is less clear who will buy her tome. She was reportedly turned down by publishers in New York before being signed by BenBella Books, not a major imprint. Books have already been written about the Edwards debacle, notably The Politician by Andrew Young, a former aide who agreed to pretend he had fathered the baby not the senator.

This time, it could be the that book will have more to say about the early life of the writer than the affair.