Author's Tahitian holiday leads to tall tale (4)
I believe the answer is:
myth
'tall tale' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'author's tahitian holiday leads' is the wordplay.
'author's' becomes 'my' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'leads' indicates taking the first letters.
The initial letters of 'tahitian holiday' is 'th'.
'my'+'th'='MYTH'
'to' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for myth that I've seen before include "Fictitious thing; traditional story" , "Legend, folk tale" , "lie!" , "Fiction" , "Legend; fable" .)